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THE WHIMS OF 
THE AGES 



THE MOON THE MOTHER OF 
ALL THINGS 

The Day of Doom and the Flight 
of the Gods 







By J^'M:%00LSEY 

Member of the Folk Lore Society of London, and the 
Folk Lore Society of New York 



Copyright, 1916, by 
J. M. WOOLSEY 



Printed in the United States. 




/ 



fyc 



JAN II 1917 



■ W6 



) 01.4458771 



DEDICATED 

to the 

Folk Lore Society of New York 

and the 

Folk Lore Society of London. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE MOON. 

SUPERSTITIONS are chronic complaints, deep rooted and 
die hard. 

The moon to the ancient world never ceased to be the 
land of mystery from which our religious whims and witch- 
craft have been drawn. Everything which occurred, every 
sight and sound was an omen for evil or good from the crow- 
ing of the cock to the muttering of fire upon the hearth, and 
all the antics of sun and moon were imitated and called divine 
mysteries, and all the trees, plants and fruits which had any 
likeness or affinity were dedicated to the moon for their 
virtues and healing properties. 

Astrology arose from the belief of a connection between 
the heavenly bodies and the life of man and the influence of 
the stars on human destiny, and in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries the astrologers were still in high repute. 
And all mag"ic names, words, formulas, talismans and 
amulets but represent the talisman of the new moon, the great 
magician, cheat and trickster. 

Lunacy in ancient belief was due to the influence of the 
moon. 

The moon formerly regulated the growth of hair, the full- 
ness of shell fish, fruit, meat, and caused steeples and pyramids 
to incline from their perpendicular. 

Good tales spread rapidly and it is hard to find one like 
"Cinderella" or the faithful dog "Galert" or "William Tell" 



8 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

which has not been scattered from India to the Atlantic. 
They are better than true. 

Most of our tales are of ancient lineage ; the common 
heirloom and inheritance of mankind, with later adaptations 
of modern times which have wide distribution and though 
apparently strange and impossible are still true to their 
hidden prototype. 

Twenty-eight years had passed the 28 days of the moon 
month and it was the last moon of the summer, and Jack 
(the moon) being a tinker was a spendthrift and could never 
s^ve a penny : that is, the moon no matter how economical, 
he is obliged to part with a ring or coin every day and at 
the end of the month has given up his last coin, and his wife 
can never keep the wool she stores for it is pulled out of the 
bag, piece by piece, until the last piece of wool or light is 
gone, and the moon bag is dark and empty. The bag in which 
the woman puts scraps of sun wool is the moon bag. 

The moon was known to govern the tides and the ebb and 
flow in obedience to the pulsation of the sea. Sunlight and 
darkness and the blood flow, pumped by the heart even as the 
tides are pumped by the moon, the great heart of the sky. 

The ancient armies were accompanied iby augurs and 
prophets who interpreted the signs, omens and portents of 
the sky. 

Men sowed and reaped and bought and sold ; they went and 
came and lived and died under the guidance and direction of 
astrologers, wise men and omen readers. They entered into 
all the details of their existence, they have permeated every 
industry and amusement of human life. They have outlived 
thrones and empires, survived reformations, overturned 
science and defied even common sense. 

We still put fresh meat in salt brine three days to draw 
out the blood as the blood is drawn out of the moon for three 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 9 

days at every conjunction. For this reason children are not 
allowed to sleep with old people. 

As virtue was supposed to be drawn from them even as 
the old black moon or witch draws the fire or life out of the 
bright moon as a vampire. 

It originated the trial by ordeal when the person sus- 
pected of murder was required to touch the corpse when, if 
guilty, blood would flow from the lips of the corpse — the 
scene occurs at the end of every lunar month when the moon 
is slain and remains dead and dark for three days when the 
sun who was the murderer is obliged to touch the corpse 
and a stream of blood (the ring of the new moon) betrays 
the criminal. 

The hair could not be cut, the nails pared or a tooth pulled 
without encountering omens and ritual. 

The hair and nails were cut at new moon ; they grew better 
in new light, like vegetables. Marriages were performed at 
new moon and to move in a new house at new moon, she will 
increase your store. 

Girls were weaned at the wane to give them a lean slim 
figure and boys at full to make them robust. 

Hogs were killed only on the increase of the moon for if 
killed at any other time the pork would shrink in the pot. 

The British Druids consecrated their gold by dropping 
it in a lake as the sun dropped his gold in the moon lake 
at night. They had a lake in the mountains sacred to the 
moon called Helenus, and in this they cast linen, cloth, 
fleeces, cheese, wax and bread at a feast of three days, the 
time which the sun tarries upon the dark moon at the begin- 
ing of every month. In heathen belief everything which 
passed through the fire would be preserved from evil, and 
they ran round their fields with flaming torches to bless and 
fertilize their land. 



10 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

And the bell now tolled at death is the same bell of old 
and still rung in Asiatic countries to drive away evil spirits 
from the dying- and dead man's soul. 

Up in the courtyard of the moon, that land of tragic 
change and unrest, it was there all nations and creeds looked 
for omens. The farmer planted, sowed and reaped by lunar 
observations ; the journeyman departed under her auspicious 
signs and watched to observe the new moon over the right 
shoulder. That moon that governed the dew, the rain and 
the vintage — that land of freak and disguise. 

For ten thousand years people looked at that smoky chim- 
ney '*01d Santa Claus" used to climb up and down there 
with Christmas gifts. 

The ancients spent their lives watching the flight of birds, 
consulting oracles, omens, and observing the stars which had 
a supposed influence over human life. 

Christians use these symbols as cross, dove, fish, anchor, 
horseshoe and rod, and all of them are the new moon ring 
and are moon symbols. 

The moon was the sacred Mirror and ancestral shrine. 

The moon woman feels she cannot live without her Lord, 
the Sun, wherever he goes. She feels herself imitating all his 
movements — at one time burned to ashes and again restored 
to life on the third day. 

Pregnant women were not allowed to eat a hare or to 
look at a hare for fear their child would be marked with a 
hare or have a hare lip. This superstition originated in the 
moon, for there is the image of a hare in the moon and this 
moon hare was a witch wife and master of spells, transform- 
ations and magic. 

It was the dead man's bone which prophesied from the 
tomb of Merlin — it is the dead horse head alone that is wise 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 11 

over the gate. That hidden hand, the dead man's hand, shall 
rise up from the grave as a magic wand to heal the nations. 

The ancient mysteries were the celebration of the visible 
terrestrial and celestial mysteries as taught by the heaven 
and earth for every step of progress the luminaries advanced 
upon the great celestial highway was imaged and reflected 
upon the earth which followed the course of the sun and 
moon around the year which brought the annual return of 
their festivals, rites and ceremonies. 

All our tales of raising the dead, cleansing the leper, 
healing the sick, working miracles, enchantment, transform- 
ation, transmigration, transfiguration, temptation, sin, fall, 
regeneration and all our rites originated in the visible changes 
and phenomena of the sun and moon and earth. 

The broken ring the lover leaves with the maiden, the 
broken bone placed over the door, the one sandal left on 
the shore of the moon is the half ring, the sun lover who 
will complete the ring and the two welded around the moon 
as the ring pf the new moon the wedding ring of springtime. 

Isis, the Egyptian moon goddess, was the first to teach 
the Egyptians how to bleach linen. Isis is the moon; she 
bleaches her linen white every month. 

Servian women will not wash a shirt at new moon ; their 
linen, they say, would get "mooned" in the water — pucker and 
tear, but the stains and spots disappear when washed in the 
old of the moon. (Grimm, p. 715.) 

This is why the laundress puts blueing in her clothes to 
make them white, as the moon first blues her garments and 
then bleaches. 

This is why the wool and yarn of our grandmothers was 
dyed blue — the color of the blue moon — and then the bundles 
of rolls were pinned together with a thorn, which is the pin 
of the first new moon. 



12 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

The moon was the snap dragon that bit off fingers when 
pointed at her. This was a wide superstition. It arose from 
seeing the little finger of the sun bitten off and stored in the 
mouth of the black moon as the new moon ring. Sometimes 
it is a nose bitten off, as in the Mother Goosey Rhymes ; 
the moon maiden folding up her linen has her nose bitten 
off — "in came a black bird and snapped off her nose." 

The discus or quoit is the disc of the sun and moon. 

Twelve ounces to the pound in Roman weight to agree 
with the months of the solar year, the aisle of a church from 
ala *'wing" ; two wings, a wing on each side of the nave 
(navis), a rigged ship or bird; the two wings or forks of the 
new moon. 

Ra and Sol in the eight notes of the gamut are the two 
names of sun deities, one Egyptian and the other classic. 

They are our twelve panes of glass or windows of the 
three panes one way and four the other, and six in each sash 
for the two seasons of Summer and Winter. 

We still wear charms upon our watch chain. The chain 
is the moon chain; the watch is the diminutive moon, the time 
keeper. 

The king had an ivory throne, his palanquin was of ivory 
because the sun god sat upon the ivory throne of the moon 
and his festivals were held at conjunction of sun and moon. 

The Hebrews sacrificed a red heifer to Jehovah and the 
Egyptians sacrificed red cattle to the good bull, the God 
Apis, and when Apis died they buried a red steer by his side 
for the same reason that red cattle were sacred to Typhon- 
satan or the evil principle; for Typhon himself was red, and 
this raised the strong aversion to red hair in human beings, 
particularly in the British Islands, not because they were 
Danes but red was Typhonian. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 13 

Ancient coins were stamped with moon symbols as an 
olive branch or owl, and coin means wedge or new moon, and 
money means moon. 

Egyptians and Celts used ring money, still preserved in 
antiquarian museums. The Hebrew shekel was a silver piece 
about the weight of half a dollar. It had on one side a pot 
of manna, on the other a three-stemmed flower, or Aaron's 
rod. The pot of manna represented the moon, the bread 
giver, and the three-stemmed flower, the triad or three formed 
moon, always born on the third night of darkness. 

The moon signs and telegrams originated clairvoyance, 
sending spirit messages and magnetic healing. 



14 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



CHAPTER n. 



SUN AND MOON IN RELIGION AND MAGIC. 

THE sun to the desert shepherds was an evil destroying 
god that dried the fountains and burned vegetation, 
while the moon, the water god, was the nourisher of the 
vegetable world with the dews of night. The moon taught 
magic art ; spirits that leave no footmarks but roam the air. 

The moon was to them the silver door, and the heavenly 
door ; the sun entered that door. 

Religious ceremonies are all of them magic, as practiced 
to-day in our churches. Charms are worn throughout Europe 
against evil powers and spirits, fetishism and benedictions 
practiced under ignorant spiritual leaders. 

Astronomy to the Babylonians was the mistress of all 
science. 4 

A country filled with astrological quacks, soothsayers, 
necromancers, sorcerers and exorcists, to cast out demons and 
evil spirits, by a ritual of obscure and incomprehensible words 
and gestures, to move the Gods to compassion and break the 
spell or baleful curse. Their heavenly temple was the moon, 
and the Babylonians built a temple in its likeness and called 
it Babel, "the gate of God," which also gave name to its 
city of "Babylon," more anciently called "Seat of Life." 

Before that mythical moon the diviner stood with Urim 
and Thummin repeating formulas and magical words endeav- 
oring to avert, by magic, the decrees of fate. 

We still stand in awe before the infinite depths of celestial 
space, reaching for the unknown. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 15 

The moon oracle is still in use as our almanac, which gov- 
erns lunatics and is supposed to prevail over female periodi- 
cities and the weather, and we continually hear the inquiry, 
*'When does the moon change?" It governed the tides and 
was supposed to shed dew (when no drop of water or dew 
ever fell from the moon.) 

The new moon ring to the ancients was the seed or soul 
from which it grew — that soul or leaven which enlivens and 
gives life to the whole lump. The moon is short lived, and 
every month is burned upon a funeral pile to eliminate the 
soul and renew the lamp of life. 

The ancients believed that all things had come from the 
moon, and that through the umbilical cord of the moon the 
earth drew its nutriment and sustenance. 

Religions were made up from solar and lunar riddles trans- 
lated from an age when everything is made to talk, and we 
hear the stories told from trees and stones, and the wind and 
the rain are made to talk and the flowers woo and wed, for 
the heavens and earth were reflected in that pool. There in 
that mirror the sun went to look at himself, there he sat 
down every evening when his day's work was done and the 
moon spread for him her silken pillows and crimson robes — it 
was the hotel where the tired old sun traveller put up over 
night. 

Soma, the moon, v/as the sovereign of the vegetable world 
to the Hindu. All the ancient world was filled with signs, 
omens and presages ; it was the chief lore ; everything had its 
sign and director. In the building of a house, or the sowing 
of seeds, all were governed by signs, and if begun at an 
inauspicious time would fail. 

That is the old lunar clock that ran twenty-eight days at a 
time and again wound herself up at the beginning of every 
lunar month. 



16 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Adam and Eve were married, there Cain slew his brother, 
there Christ was born, and there He died and arose from the 
dead. 



MOON, THE GREAT REVELATOR. 

Old Abraham dug his well there and planted a tree. Jacob 
slept there on a stone and then set the stone up for a memo- 
rial. It stands there yet, white and smooth, without a flaw. 

In the depth of that dark moon is the cave of Machpelah 
or "double division," one part of light and the other of dark- 
ness, and the sword of light lies between them. That is the 
cave in which Adam and Eve hid themselves from the sight 
of Jehovah, the sun god. It is the sword or ring of light 
between the upper and lower world of the moon, the cave of 
the seven sleepers. 

The new moon is the purse of gold, the box of ointment, 
the wish bone. 

The new moon ring is the key of all things, the divining 
rod, the horn of plenty, the bread tray, the kneading trough. 
Tl is the whistle in the chest, the heart in the giant's body, 
the buried treasure, the hidden secret, the lost jewel and talis- 
man, the bone of healing, and the pearl of great price. It 
is symbolism, in which nothing is called by its right name, 
but by borrowed figures. The new moon ring is the key of 
the Kingdom of Heaven (Mat. 16:19), key of death and hell 
(Rev. 1:18), key of the bottomless pit (20; 1 Rev. 9; 
1 Rev. 20:1). 

It is the collar of Harmonia, the girdle of Venus, the three 
mites of the widow in one coin, the first ring of the moon. 

The new moon was the immortal ring. The one that fire 
cannot burn nor water drown, that gold purified by the fire, 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 17 

that arises from the conflagration of the moon on the third 
day. The Gulweig, the maid of the Norse tales, who was 
thrice cast in the fire and each time arose more beautiful. 

The new moon was the signet ring, seal, and insignia of 
authority, and the evil eye and baleful look which withered 
life at winter time. He who looks through the loop of the 
wise man's arm can see spirits. And the wise man's arm is 
the ring of the new moon. Sometimes that new moon ring 
is said to be saved from the moon sea as a Moses or Jonah, 
that the sea has sworn a solemn oath to never drown. 

There the sun saw not face to face but through a glass 
darkly. The sun was the artisan and image maker, *T and 
my father are one ; he who hath seen me hath seen the father," 
for the moon was the image of the sun who was the father. 

There the island was raised to receive the drowning 
Ulysses, the first land ever raised from the deep ; from there 
came the wind and the storm and the thunderbolts of heaven. 

From there came the signs, the signals and the alphabet 
of nature and the gods. 

There were told the pictured stories and traditions of 
ancient times. From that mountain God's laws were thun- 
dered down ; from that high court there was no appeal ; there 
God's revelations were written with a pen of fire. 

Little Cinderella, the sooty cinder girl, hid there the two 
dark nights of her wedding festival. 

Peeping Tom of Coventry hid in there, and peeped through 
that crack of the moon wall at Lady Godiva, and that is the 
same Peeping Tom or Thomas, the infidel apostle, who doubted 
Christ until he thrust his hand through that same hole in 
the moon, the side of Christ, and we are just escaping from 
the wilderness of the old world ignorance and have overcome 
the despotism of religion with the freedom of thought. 

There occurred Christ's wonders and miracles; there He 



18 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

raised Lazarus. There the witch of Endor raised the prophet 
Samuel. There old Odin, the high god of the Norsemen, 
raised up the Vale the prophetess to learn the fate of Baldur. 

There Wainamoinen raised up the dead giant to obtain the 
three lost words, the ring of the spring moon, the three rings 
in one. There the leper was healed, there on the third day 
Paul came to his understanding, there on the third day the 
memory came back to Peter. 

Christ and Jonah were raised there on the third day. 

That moon was the speech friend of the sun god, his right- 
hand man and counsellor. 

Pliny says : ''Hence we may certainly conjecture that the 
moon is the star of our life, this it is that replenishes the 
earth; when she approaches it she fills all bodies, and when 
she recedes she empties them ; and from this cause shellfish 
grow with her increase and the blood of man is increased or 
diminished in proportion tO" the quantity of her light, and 
the leaves of vegetation feel her increase. 

"Fluids are burned up by the sun. We have therefore 
regarded it as a masculine star burning up and absorbing 
everything."— Pliny B. 2, Ch. 102. 

Pliny quoting Varro says the hair should be cut at full 
m.oon if we would avoid baldness. (Pliny B. 16, Ch. 75.) 

If you open trenches by a waxing moon they will grow 
apart ; but if opened by a waning moon they will grow to- 
gether. 

A wound inflicted in the dark of the moon was dangerous 
and rnalignant, if the sign were in the heart or feet. 

The moon's phases were continually studied in gardening, 
grafting, gathering fruit, and cutting timber; as in the full 
moon plants were full of sap and in the wane timber must 
be cut and fruit gathered with least sap for better keeping. 

Dew was erroneously believed to proceed from the moon, 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 19 

and the growth of plants was referred to the moon goddess, 
rather than to the sun, and the moon presided over the birth 
of children, and a woman's time of childbirth was reckoned 
by moons and the periodicity of menstruation also was gov- 
erned by the moon in their belief. 

The ancients derived their conception of soul from the 
moon that life or vital spark which dies out and is yet not 
consumed but arises like Jonah and Christ upon the Third 
day. Again it was suggested by seeing the sun die at night 
and his soul seen to fly away upon the moon as in a dream 
of the night. Our "nightmare" originated from this scene 
of the moon. "Mare" is the name of the moon, the goddess 
of mare, "the sea." The hag and the strangler of the light 
and our heavy delirious sleep we call "nightmare." 

In the creation of Adam God breathed into him the 
breath or soul of God and man became a living soul. With 
many ancient nations the seat of the soul was the liver, and 
again as with the Aztecs it lay in the heart, the soul of life. 
That ring of the new moon was the universal soul. 

A saying in Cornwall when a child is born in the interval 
between an old moon and the first appearance of a new one, 
he will never live to grow up. Their saying was, "No moon, 
no man." 

It is the soul or ghost of the sun or departed soul of the 
sun — even as the soul of the Egyptian Osiris the sun had 
tc be confined in the black box of the moon, the winter tree, 
and his wife pursued on after him and obtained the bushy 
tree of the moon and cut off the outer covering and found a 
white pillar within which was the first ring or pillar of the 
moon, the one immortal which contained the soul of Osiris ; 
it was the soul of Christ. 

In mythology and metaphysics it is called thought, soul, 
mind, intellect, it is the first form Proteus, Protogonas, Prome- 



20 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

theus the "Logos," the "Word" that became flesh, it defies 
age and the fiery furnace of the moon and rises from its 
ashes, it is the soul of the universe, it is the seed ring of the 
moon. 

The American mound builders had the same superstition 
which prevailed among the Egyptians that the corpse in the 
tomb received visits from the soul which dwelt in its celestial 
ahode. The idea of a double which belonged to the dead, a 
soul and body ; and holes were bored in the skulls of the 
dead, that the soul might go in and out, and holes were left 
in the stone at the door of the prehistoric dolmens of Europe 
supposed for the same purpose as the apertures left in the 
most ancient of Egyptian pyramidal mounds for the com- 
munion of soul and body. 

For the moonlight is the shadow or soul of the sun, it is 
the other self as the soul of the departed sun for from that 
moon the wise woman, the witch wife and the master of magic 
originated all rites and ceremonies, all whims and witchcraft, 
all wisdom and deceit that moon the mother of all things. 

It originated cremation and the burning of the dead in 
imitation of the moon, the funeral pyre to eliminate the soul 
which arises on the third day from the ashes of the moon, 
and funeral obsequies were essential for the repose of the 
dead, as the soul of the dead moon was three days in rising. 
At the ancient Aryan funeral they walked three times round 
the spot with left side toward the corpse. 

We keep our dead for three days and the funeral is held 
upon the third day. 

The two principles of good and evil, life and death, crea- 
tion and destruction are taught by the visible phenomena of 
heaven and earth around us. The wax and wane of the moon, 
her life and death — as a man will live until hi's fire goes out. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 21 

Magic necromancy, and wonder working through super- 
natural agencies, universally preceded religion such as rain- 
making, disease making and sympathetic magic. 



22 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

CHAPTER HI. 
THE MOON IN MANY ROLES. 

THAT moon was the ghost world where the disembodied 
sun was seen stalking in his night shroud as a wax 
image. 

And the new moon, the original throne of the gods, was 
brought down by incantation. That moon was the incarnate 
wisdom of the universe, it taught revelations by dreams and 
oracles. This was old world belief. 

Religion in every age has been purposely veiled in mystery ; 
filled with ghosts, spells, magic, enchantment, sorcery, and 
dark sayings, where gods and men take beast form, and all 
inanimate things are gifted with speech and personality, and 
religions grew and changed with the growth and intellectual 
advance of the nation. 

That moon is the smoking furnace which Abraham beheld 
as her fire had burned out on her funeral pyre. (Gen. LS:12, 
17.) And the fiery furnace in which the three Hebrew children 
\vere cast. 

That new moon is the tall pillar which Jacob set up and 
called it "the house of God, and gate of heaven." 

It was in the gap of that moon, God the sun hid Moses 
while he passed by, and where Adam and Eve hid. 

It was on the black wall of the moon, the bulletin board 
wTiere Belshazzar saw the handwriting. 

There Christ the sun god was transfigured at night. In 
that dark house of wisdom. There the ghost of Samuel was 
raised up for Saul for all the sun gods had to consult that 
oracle. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 23 

That moon is fairyland where the dead awake at night, 
where the Valkyrs raised to life the heroes slain in battle. 

In the Roman religion caves were the abode of sibyls and 
nymphs. 

In Greece caves were the temples of Zeus, Dionysius, Pan 
and Pluto ; they represented the moon caves ; they were the 
abode of oracles at Delphi, Corinth and Mount Cithaeron, and 
the worship of Mithras and the seven sleepers of Ephesus. 
Lot and his two daughters dwelt in that cave, and that was 
where Adam and Eve hid, and David hid there from Saul ; 
the cave of the moon, the Macpelah for the west was the 
gateway of night through which the sun crept. 

There are twelve houses on the Zodiac and the moon is 
set up in each one of the tv/elve. That house is the one 
pulled down by the strong man Samson, for in that winter 
moon the captive Samson the sun ground corn. 

That House Christ was made to say He could pull down 
and rebuild in three days which is done now once a month, 
the old moon house disappears once a month and is reborn 
again on the third day. 

It was the house of the seven gables, and the house for- 
ever divided against itself which shall surely fall. 

That moon was the house of the Volsungs, in the northern 
legends the dwellings of kings when the world was young; 
its roofs were thatched with gold, and its doors were silver 
nailed, and its walls were hung with battle shields, and there 
was the throne of Volsung beneath the blossoming bower of 
the Branstock, the tree of Life "which sprang up in the mid- 
most hall floor, and reared its blessings roofward." 

Again it is the winter house of old farmer Celeus, where 
Demeter went to nurse the young sun prince, Demophoon. 

It is the almshouse and the orphanage where old Abraham 
went down with Sarah, and the winter Pharaoh (Hades) took 



24 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Sarah away from him to stock his harem. The Holy Family 
went down there to winter every year. 

Samson went down there in the winter moon to grind 
corn. Hercules went down there to weave on the loom of the 
harlot Omphale in that winter house. It was the treasure 
house and held the golden hoard of the sun. The Niblung 
treasure which was stored in the vault of the winter moon. 

Hermes, the wise man, was the landlord. It was the 
celestial theatre where all the great cosmic tragedies have 
been played, for that moon stops in every one of the twelve 
constellations to play a piece appropriate for the season of the 
year. 

In Spring it is the Beth-car, "house of the lamb" or Beth- 
peor, "house of opening," but at the end of summer it is the 
Beth-Nimrah, "house of Rebellion." 

On that throne every New Year's day Ea, the Babylonian 
chief god, entered the "Holy of Holies" and seated himself 
above the Mercy Seat on the "Great White Throne." 

God spoke to Moses from that Mercy Seat. 

Jehovah (Yaveh) dwelt between the two cherubims on the 
floor of the Mercy Seat. "The Lord shall dwell by Benjamin 
and shall cover him all day long and dwell between his 
shoulders." Deut. 33:12. 

And these shoulders are the two forks of the new moon. 

To the ancient world the moon was animated by a spirit, 
she was mistress of the waters and controlled all animal and 
vegetable life. 

That moon door was the mouth which opened and deliv- 
ered oracles. 

Soma, the moon of the Hindus, was the guardian of sac- 
rifice and penance, he had twenty-seven wives, the twenty- 
seven lunar asterisms (days of the month.) He was "Lord 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 25 

of constellations" and ''Lord of the lotus." He was healer of 
diseases and bestower of riches. 

The moon was the great theater and celestial playhouse 
of the gods, no wedding or ball could be celebrated until the 
little Cinderella had arrived. 

There was no spring until the arrival of that suitor whose 
footsteps w^ere heard coming upon the mountains, "how beau- 
tiful are thy feet upon the mountains, oh fairest of ten thou- 
sand." 

r The moon with the Norseman was "the holy house of 
Odin, oh that hall of the "silver door." That the Goths and 
the gods have builded, to last forever more." 

That was the house where Odin the sun stopped to drink 
and had to pawn his right eye the sun, and that was the 
pawn Gilgames gave and the one Judas had to give up to the 
temple treasure. Gilgames the hero sun of Babylonia stopped 
there and gave the tree of life as a pawn which was the ring 
of the new moon. 

Jehovah, the Jew god, dwelt in the burning thorn tree of 
Mt. Horeb and spoke to Moses from that moon bush. 

In the Orphic verses souls come from the moon and return 
there as Manes. 

And again the moon was the Machpelah, the "cave of 
double division," one of light and the other of darkness, with 
a sword between. It was fairyland. 

The place of the "seven caves" and "seven sleepers," on 
one side is dark while the other is light. 

In that moon house was the throne of God "where the 
Ancient of Days sat upon his throne whose garment was white 
as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool." 

He is the Norse God Odin and the gray old serpent the 
Ancient Saturn, the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7 :9.) 



26 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

The moon at the beginning chose that ring, the rich gift 
of wisdom which the sun when hidden behind the earth at 
night dropped in the pool of the moon waters. 

The Egyptians tell us that Hercules rode in the sun and 
Hermes in the moon for the works of the moon seem to indi- 
cate wisdom and cunning. 

And that seat was between the two arms of the new moon. 

"And I will speak with thee from above the propitiatory 
from between the two cherubims" that are upon the ark 
(Seat of God) (Exodus 25:22; Ps. 80:1.) 

They are the two arms of Moses held up by Aaron and 
Hur after the sun had set, which are the arms of the new 
moon in the west held up to prolong the light of day (Exodus 
17:12.) The Christian pulpit to-day stands between the two 
forks of the moon altar which were the bull's horns. 

The doors of the four cardinal points are the chief doors, 
being the entrance to the four chief houses of the sun. 

Christ is made to say, ''I am the door of life ;" "Knock 
at the door and it shall be opened." 

It was there Melchisedek the priest king met Abraham 
returning from the wars of Sodom; he was the first ring of 
the spring moon who became the high Priest of the moon 
altar that one without beginning or end of days. 

That was where the black moon stone was rolled back 
from the sepulchre of Christ ; that was the manger and birth- 
place of Christ and the cave where Zeus (Jupiter) was born. 

There all the gods were born from the black cavern of 
the moon. 

The child is not visible until the third evening in the west 
in the lap of the moon, the old black nurse. 

All the miracles of Christ are still performed upon the 
moon by the magic wand of the new moon. Eden. was in the 
east, for all nations of old turned to the east for peace and 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 27 

rest, toiling through the winter wars "until Shiloh come," 
going home to the east Cain went back there. 

There in the moon were placed all the statues of the gods, 
that moon house was on the highway of the gods ; it was 
the Travellers' Inn at one of these moon houses the sun stopped 
every month, where the sign of the Inn hung out at the cross- 
roads. In spring the sign of the ploughshare of the husband- 
man, in autumn the reaping hook and at winter the skull and 
crossbones. 

For in the Hebrew account God made the sun and moon 
and hung them up for signs and wonders, and the seers 
divined by their lights and shadows. 

But aside from being a house of sanctity it was used by 
the poets and mythographers as a celestial theater where gods 
and heroes played the tragedy of the year. The four greatest 
plays occurred at the four cardinal points when sun and moon 
meet at the equinoxes and solstices. 

That moon house between the two forks of the moon was 
the "Great White Throne" on which Ea sat who was the chief 
god of the ancient Babylonians ; it was the same seat ot the 
Hebrew God who dwelt between the Cherubims. II Kings, 
19:15. 

There the Hindu God Vishnu slept on the couch between 
the two arms of Sesha, the serpent, again in Ihe Norse it is 
the seat of Gripir, who sat in a chair of the sea beast's tooth. 
That is the great white throne and him that sat thereon (Rev. 
20:11.) 

It is the seat of the Norse god Odin between the two 
ravens, which are the forks of the moon. 

It is the temple which Christ said he would destroy and 
rebuild in three days, which is done now at the end of every 
month. 



2^ WHIMS OF THE AGES 

And a representation of this moon temple was set up on 
the earth as an ark or sacred chest ; a portable sanctuary con- 
taining the ten commandments, and on the ark was the Mercy 
Seat surrounded by the cherubim and the space between the 
cherubim was appointed as the meeting place between God 
and man. 

Jehovah dwelt between the two cherubims on the floor of 
the Mercy Seat (Numbers 7:89), *'and I will speak with 
thee from above the propitiatory from between the two 
cherubims that are upon the ark. (Seat of God, Exodus 
25:22; Psalms 80: 1.) Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, thou 
that dwellest between the Cherubims." 

On New Year's Day, Ea, the chief god of ancient Baby- 
lonia, entered the Holy of Holies and seated himself above 
the same Mercy Seat "upon the great white throne." 

That moon was the city of the gods and its earthly repre- 
sentative, the temple, had a silver door guarded by watch- 
dogs, bulls, lions and protective animals or the cheru- 
bim or by two pillars set up like the two forks of the moon 
which guarded the sacred moon temple, sometimes birds, 
beasts or serpents instead of pillars. 

That seat of Jehovah (Yahveh) was the same throne of 
Ea, the most ancient god of Babylonia, who sat upon the 
same "great white throne," the same seat occupied by Odin, 
the Scandinavian god, between the two ravens (horns of the 
moon) the same as that of Jehovah between the two horns of 
IS bull which are the forks of the new moon when the Jehovah 
was represented as a bull, under bull worship. 

Porphry says de, ant. Nymph. 

The ancients had a notion that every person was born of 
the moon, before being born of his natural mother, and that 
the life germ invisible as thought permeated all substance as 
the sun rays were seen to come from afar and bring life ; and 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 29 

as the dew (which to them came from the moon) was seen 
Hke Manna to bring food and life to plants. 

That the vital spark was first germinated in the moon as 
the new moon child was seen to be born from the dark cavern 
of the moon through the silver door, and a like origin was 
postulated for man. 

Through this same door the children came out of the moon 
ark of Noah, consequently the moon became the midwife and 
mistress of child-bearing. 

Before this moon door sat Lucina (Juno) goddess of 
child-bearing as an old woman with her feet crossed and her 
fingers joined to retard the birth of Hercules, the sun child. 
She was the black moon who held the moon in darkness for 
the three nights, the utmoist time allowed, for then the bright 
new moon ring child of the sun burst forth through the door 
of the moon, the Door of Life, but in the west in the after 
summer it was the Door of Death. Pandora opened that for- 
bidden door, the same that Prosperine opened when she 
plucked the Narcissus, the sleepy plant which opened the way 
to winter Hades. 



30 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



CHAPTER IV. 



RELIGIOUS WHIMS. 

THE burial ground had to be christened, it was unlucky 
even to walk over an unchri'stened grave, and the un- 
christened babe never died but wandered about the woods in 
solitude after apparent death and could not die. 

The ancient philosophers and pilgrims travelled with staff 
and wallet — the staff is the stick or rod of new moon and the 
wallet the sack or pouch of the dark moon which was 
Benjamin's sack. 

For our religion is but an elixir of moonshine. ->. 

The gods swore by the moon altar. 

In the war of Jupiter with Cronos the gods swore by the 
cup of nectar, the moon cup or the cup of Soma, the moon 
of the Hindus. 

The Shaman and medicine man carried a drum and rattle 
to imitate the thunder and lightning and a medicine bag for 
the black moon bag which moon was the great healer and 
medicine man, his ancestor progenitor and his wise moon 
teacher and all this from that far-off* silver city with a lan- 
guage of speechless pantomime. 

There to our fathers was the beginning of things, there 
was the shining "Door of Life," and there will be the judg- 
ment and the end. 

It was in one part a garden of delight and in another the 
prison of the damned. 

In early Babylonian times the moon worship prevailed 
over the sun. The moon was chief god and the sun was 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 31 

hi? vassal. The moon was the house where the gods met every 
month to transact business. That is where the old wise man 
Hermes, judge and counsellor, had his bench. 

That was the altar of sacrifice where bulls were sacrificed 
to Jehovah ; he, being a god, could not eat beef, but had the 
ox roasted, then he came around and breathed or inhaled the 
odor — "smelled" the sweet savor as he did when Noah gave 
him a reception at the end of the flood. 

That is where the angels sang the world to harmony at 
the creation, that was the "Holy House of Odin, oh, that hall 
of the silver door, that the Goths and the Gods had builded to 
last forevermore !" 

Adam and Eve were married at that altar. There the 
Cinderella danced at her wedding ball. 

That is where the sisters obtained the patterns for their 
black and white robes and the priest his black and white 
gowns and the nuns their beads and the cross and the bell on 
the steeple to scare away evil spirits. 

Pantomime was taught by the moon — dramatic representa- 
tions without words through expression by attitudes and 
gestures, and the actors wore masks ; it was a dumb show. 

The moon was the revolving wheel of celestial activity. 
In ancient representations the sun as male is represented 
within the crescent of the moon. 

The moon was the prison house of the soul which is seen 
to have a re-birth and escape from its mortal nature. 

The Seraphim (Isaiah 6:2) are grouped around Jehovah's 
throne in his heavenly palace, their song shakes the founda- 
tions of the palace, they have human voices and hands. 

For our religion has not been revealed from the Gods but 
has come up self taught from savagery. 

For the moon measured time and set up mile posts on 



32 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

the planetary track and as the moon governed the tides, time 
and tide became identified. We still speak of the tide of 
life and that life came in and went out with the tide and when 
a man lingered upon his death bed, they said "he is waiting 
for the tide to go out." 

In Anglo Saxon and north countries the moon was mas- 
culine and the sun feminine. 

Dutch, Dane, Norse, Saxon and Goth all have moon mas- 
culine, but in south countries the gender is reversed. 

The moon revealed all the old religions ; our lunar system* 
C'f weather lore is based upon the ignorance of the dark ages ; 
it is the sun which governs the weather and not the moon. 
The sun raises aqueous vapors and forms clouds ; he is the 
author of every movement of the air and of every drop of 
water, dew, snow and hail. 

Snake and demon worship was the oldest of all worship. 

When men trusted in spells and charms, when demons con- 
trolled the elements and sorcerers exorcised evil and foretold 
the future, in that age they were subject to a soothsayer and 
men moved like a shadow only as directed by signs, as the 
cry of a beast or flight of a bird. 

A merchant must lay the keel, launch and sail only by 
observing the omens. And the foundations of a building were 
laid with magic ceremony, when the omens were favorable, 
as at the rise of some planet or genial constellation, and the 
warrior waited for omens and auguries before engaging in 
battle. 

For all religious rites and ceremonies and theological 
teachings have been evolved from natural phenomena and 
not from revelation or inspiration. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 33 



TEMPLE, CHURCH, AND SHRINE. 



RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITION. 

Holy water blessed by the priest is the imitation of the 
angel or sun priest at the moon fountain disturbing the water 
to make it healing for the leper that had no one to put him 
in. It was the fire stick, the first ring of the spring sun 
thrown in the bitter waters of Marah, the winter moon. 

Fasting was taught by observation of the moon's wax and 
wane, and the unleavened bread of the dark moon for three 
days. 

Circumcision. Genesis 17:11. "Ye shall circumcise the 
flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant 
between you and me — it is a representation of the scalp of 
the dark moon, showing the ring of the new moon or solar 
phallus, its great celestial prototype." 

Cutting off the hair and castration were practiced in 
sympathy with the decline of the year. Cybele demanded the 
castration of all her priests in the temple and compelled them 
to become eunuchs. 

The priest to-day pronounces that blessing to the blind 
congregation who have hidden their eyes — as the priest sun 
pronounces the blessing upon the dark moon. 

Our temples still abound with the old imitation of nature, 
the columns for the tree, the altar, the nave and the aisle, nave 
from navis, the ship, and aisle, the wing that is the winged 
ship of the moon. 



34 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

MOON, THE GREAT REVELATOR. 
RELIGIOUS WHIMS AND LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS. 

Ancient funeral rites were but lunar rites brought down to 
add to the multitude of human superstitions — unless the dead 
had funeral honors, their ghosts lay naked and wailed by the 
waters of Cocytus. The funeral honors were during the three 
dark nights of the moon when the deceased was wrapped in a 
pall, or sack-cloth and ashes, when the imprisoned soul 
escaped as the imprisoned soul of the moon is seen to escape 
on the third night as the ring of light or life. 

Convents are moon houses and were often built on the 
banks of streams where nuns still live as shy spinsters who 
avoid men and ignore wedlock and nuptial life, who wear 
black robes v/ith white bands, the more closely to imitate the 
moon mother, Mary, whose name means Mare, "the sea," and 
the word nun means a fish as the moon goddess, the Venus of 
old, was churned from the sea and had a fish pond by her 
temple filled with sacred fish. 

Terah is a corruption of the word "Yerah" (moon). 

Teraphim were moon images and oracles. 

Laban said to Jacob "wherefore has thou stolen my gods?" 
Teraphim were consulted as oracles in divination similar to 
Roman Lares and Penates house gods. 

Urim and Thummim were worn on the breast plate upon 
Aaron's sons, a divine oracle used in asking counsel of the 
Lord, sacred dice and images are found around the neck of 
the Egyptian mummies. The Babylonian Marduk tore the 
tablets of destiny from the breast of his foe and replaced them 
with his own. 

Souls of the dead and house spirits, dwarfs and guardian 
deities, are still recognized by the Chinese. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 35 



CHARMS. 



RELIGIOUS. 

Religious mysteries are a representation of the mysteries 
of the sun and moon and natural phenomena. 

The dividing curtain in the temple represented that divid- 
ing curtain of the moon, the light from the darkness, the sheep 
from the goats. Sacred bread offered to the gods, Christmas 
pie of goose in North England hog's head, hot cross buns, 
ancient Greek Bons, and Bonn ox (Brand vol. 1, p. 155), a 
cake with two horns made of fine flour and honey. 

Church bells were cast with ceremony and prayer and cast 
as a friendly aspect of planets. John Aubrey "Remains of 
Gentilism." 

Healing herbs were gathered at new moon. 

Anointing and circumcision were taught by the moon as 
the new moon was anointed by the sun. 

From India to Europe children were passed through clefts 
of rocks and holes of trees called navels and when they came 
out were called regenerate; in imitation of the sun child 
passed through a hole in the black moon. 

It is passing a child over the back and under the belly of 
a donkey to cure measles as practised in Donegal, Ireland. 
Church Folk Lore, Rev. I. E. Vaux, who adds that he was 
unable to guess the riddle. 'Tt was taught by the moon which 
passes the young child of the new moon over its back and 
under its belly. It originated the saying, what goes over the 



36 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

devil's back will go under the belly, for all healing and 
miracles were performed upon the moon. (Author.) 

Sometimes a child was passed under the belly of an ass or 
a piebald pony or nine times over the back and nine times under 
the belly of a donkey. The donkey was the black moon, the 
same ass which Christ rode. The same as carrying a patient 
through the smoke of a lime kiln (new moon smoke) it was 
healing. Going through fire to Molech. — Leviticus 18:21. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 37 



RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITIONS. 

In all Christian countries in former times, it was customary 
to ring or toll a bell after a person had died while the soul 
was passing to heaven, to drive away evil spirits who stood 
about the house and at the bed's foot to seize the departing 
soul or molest it on its way. 

It is still called "the passing bell" for the soul's passage, 
for the bell broke the enchantment and the bell was made to 
represent the black moon with a tongue inside and ringing. 
The bell would also heal the sick. 

But a few centuries ago in England a man walked at a 
funeral ringing a bell to drive away evil spirits. (North- 
umberland Folk Lore.) 

Catholic Christians still pray for the repose of the de- 
parted soul, for in the old creed, if burial rites were not ad- 
ministered the ghost would wander about to haunt the living. 

These priests were the enemies of progress who kept the 
people in a spell of mystery under the pretended guidance of 
invisable powers. 

The moon horn was very common in domestic use, and ves- 
sels were made to imitate the moon horn and we still retain 
the names in lantern (lanthorn) and (ink horn) for ink stand. 

In the old superstitions we find a house was to be pulled 
down only at the wane of the moon. 

The moon kept the sacred fire upon her hearth and was 
appointed to watch over and guard the family hearth. 

But the gods were too far away, they must be brought 
down and dwell with us, live at our hearth and partake of our 
gifts. 



38 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

We are still haunted with the shadow of the old faith. 

Our religion is but heathen survivals of fortune tellers and 
sorcerers. Our gods are still anthropomorphic, the old man 
of the sky we still worship in human form, and old Jewish 
history is principally the feuds and wars of the sun and moon 
and the elements in the annual round of the seasons. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES ^ 39 



RELIGIOUS. 

All the canonical and priestly vestments, robes and sur- 
plices, scarf and scapulary, are but imitations of the moon's 
changes, and patterns cut out by that magic pair of scissors, 
the (new moon) which cuts garments out of the air, the 
tonsure, cowl, hood, the apron, and all pontificals, pall, mitre, 
tiara and triple crown were copied from the moon. 

The Rabbis assert in the Talmudic traditions that the 
vessels of the tabernacle were a fac-simile of those in heaven 
and that a fiery ark, a fiery table and a fiery candlestick, 
descended from heaven for Moses to copy. 

Ceremonial observances, sacraments, incantations, bap- 
tism, christening, confirmation, Eucharist, consecration, 
mass, extreme unction, transfiguration, transsubstantiation, 
sackcloth and ashes, rosary and bead roll were all taught by 
the moon. 

In primitive Accadian and Babylonian times they relied 
upon exorcisms and charms rather than medicine for curing 
ills, for to them the earth and heaven swarmed with evil 
spirits which produced the many diseases of human life. 

And little statues with holy texts and sentences wrapped 
around them were placed at entrances and doors. 

And magic prescriptions were wrapped around parch- 
ment or papyrus, as later the Philacteries of the Jews on 
which were written portions of Jewish law. They were placed 
on gates and doors and entrances as charms and exorcisms, 
or bound around the hands and feet. 

Each disease had a special evil spirit and this continued 
on through early Christianity. 



40 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

We still bring down celestial spirits by incantations and 
ritual into fetish objects as a tree or stone. We continue to 
bring them down into our temples to-day for the Moon is 
the Bethel or house of God ; the same stone pillar which 
Jacob set up on earth, the image of the moon pillar. 

For the principal religions and mysteries of the world have 
been taught by the moon, that wandering ghost of the night, 
the home of magic. 

Our religious ceremonies are but the lunar antics of our 
heathen ancestors. 

Our churches are adaptations of tree and ship and bird — 
a collection of ancient symbols. 

The modern nun in black with a crucifix is that black 
moon with a rosary dangling from her hand. 

From the wanderings of the moon, its phases and trans- 
formations originated a like emanation and wandering of the 
human soul. 

All the principal religions, rites and ceremonies are but 
an astronomical allegory founded upon the life, death and 
resurrection of the year. 

The sea digs down earth's walls and strews them on its 
floor. Earth groans and vomits fire ; but again spring wakes 
tc. life what winter slays, and we build moon temples with 
spire and rod pointing upward in imitation of that fire rod 
of the moon and its altar. 

And inside of our sanctuary we build the altar in a half 
circle to imitate the moon altar burned out and renewed 
every month, and inside of the altar we station a priest and 
ring bells which have a tongue inside to imitate the tongue of 
the new moon. 

And would we destroy all this! Oh, no — ten thousand 
times, no ; no. 




WHIMS OF THE AGES 41 

Let the bells peal forth from temple towers — let Rachel 

mourn. 
Let women weep and cast their veils to heaven — 
"For mercy gives to charm the sense of woe 
Ideal peace which truth can ne'er bestow." 



42 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



CHAPTER V. 



PLANT LORE, 

THE new moon was the Fleur de Lis or *'flower of light/' 
the torch tree and lamp of heaven. 

The moon to the ancients was bi-sexual author of magic 
and mother of all things. 

Plants had to the ancient a divine origin. The divinities 
inhabited the trees and flowers, and these plants were^sought 
out by the wise in plant lore, identified, and dedicated to the 
nymphs and deities : as Hyacinth had been changed to a 
flower of that name, and Daphne had become a laurel. It 
was supposed plants bore upon their face the image of their 
father and mother, the sun and moon, who were the great 
healers and destroyers — they were fire and water blended. 
The sun as fire and the moon as water in imitation of their 
heavenly prototypes. 

In medical science each plant had a self manifestation and 
suggested its own healing powers by its form, color, and 
shape ; each plant indicated its own office : as boneset was 
chosen because its leaves united and welded with the stalk, 
hence applied to fractured limbs. 

As the healer sought for something pathognomic and 
symptomatic. And as the tides rose and fell with the moon, 
so life came in and went out with the tide. 

So plants were supposed to fill and be fruitful on the 
increase of the moon, and fruits and meats, and all things 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 43 

on earth waxed and waned with the moon, and when the sun 
and moon waned, life withered. 

In their belief nature had written out her wisdom on the 
trees and plants, and they studied the potency of herbs from 
the theory of similitude to learn their properties of bane and 
healing. 

Plants were chosen to represent perpetual verdure or 
resistance to decay, or potent to counteract witchcraft — such 
charms as four-leafed clover or double-leafed ash. 

The trefoil represented the trinity, and the amaranth or 
orpine (live forever) represented immortality. 

The red rose was a charm against hemorrhage ; nettle tea 
cured nettle rash. 

Heart's-ease from having a heart on its leaf was a cure 
for the heart's disease, the blood root cured bloody flux. 

Quaking grass cured fever and chills. 

Swelling plants supposed good for tumors, long-lived 
plants contribute to the longevity of the patient, and sterile 
plants produced their like effects. 

Salacious plants as mandrake promoted fecundity. 

Saxifrage growing in the cracks of rocks was supposed 
to split rocks and called, as its name implies, the "rock split- 
ter;" hence as outward signs denoted internal characteristics 
it was used to cure calculus. 

From the observations of the sun and moon the air and 
earth arose, weather lore and agricultural lore, and plants 
were used as barometers and floral indices as they opened or 
shut or altered with the atmospheric changes. 

The wishing rod and divining rod were cut from the hazel 
and holy thorn. It was cut from a wild hazel, the new 
growth of the present year. A forked branch cut by the 
right hand and by the moonlight of the crescent moon. 



44 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

It must be a bough with a fork and twisted three times 
around itself ; it must stand on the tree in a position that 
the sun could shine through, from east to west, or it was 
impotent. ^ The finder bowed three times to the east, and 
made seven spells. Sometimes the fork of the fir or lime 
was used. All these observations and antics were in obedi- 
ence to the moon. The forked branch represented the new-, 
moon crescent ; it was twisted three times for the three revo- 
lutions of the moon ; before the new moon appeared the finder 
.bowed three times to the east for the same reason, for it 
required three trials before the crescent light could escape 
from the cavern of the moon. 

Trees were split and held open by wedges, and diseased 
persons passed three times through, and after the tree had 
received the sin or curse it was plastered and bound up, and 
as the tree healed so did the patient. 

The new moon was the Sesame of the Arabian nights, 
which opened the doors of caves and mountain caverns. The 
primrose in German legend is called key flower, because it 
appears at the time of the opening of the spring door of the 
m.oon. 

The new moon was worn as a crescent, cross, sacred 
heart, horse shoe or scarabaeus, and the external resemblance 
of plants indicated their medicinal virtue in the cure of human 
ailments. 

Protectives against sorcery and witchcraft by which 
cattle were struck to render them fertile and prolific, and to 
discover hidden springs and mines of wealth, they were cut 
with a forked end to represent the two forks of the new moon 
which was seen to bend over the moon waters. 

Flowers were used in religious ceremonies and sacred 
rites. They possessed divine attributes and had a. symbolic 
meaning and were woven into garlands which could be read 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 45 

by the initiated, forming a cross was healing like the new 
moon cross ; or it was a medical theory from some external 
character of the plant. Yellow substances were used for the 
liver — red for the blood, and plants had their own virtues 
stamped upon them. 

Plants were worn as charms and amulets. Doors and 
windows were decorated with them to drive off witches, such 
as St. John's Wort. 

The Hindu hung up in the room a charm against witches, 
as the Scot and Briton hung up the rowan or mountain ash 
over the door. Men and women carried a stick of rowan in 
their pockets, and rowan berries were worn in the headband; 
likewise holly and bracken or heath for the same purpose, 
to avert evil, for bracken bore upon its root when cut hori- 
zontally the curve of the new moon or letter C for Christ. 
It is also the hoof mark of cattle. These talismanic plants 
had been engraved or painted in the likeness of their proto- 
types or stamped with the seal or image of the sun and moon. 

The seed of the vipers Bugloss resembled the head of the 
viper, and its stem was spotted, suppo'sed to cure the bite of 
spotted vipers, according to its natural signature and the law 
of similitudes. 

Christians have chosen the passion flower from a fancied 
resemblance of its corona to the crown of thorns ; other parts 
suggesting the nails of the cross. 

Plants employed in sorcery were collected in certain 
stages of the moon, some gathered at the rising of the dog 
star, some from places where the sun never shone, some gath- 
ered for their Lethean or soporific qualities and placed in 
the witches' cauldron. It was the wizard's magic, and from 
these enchanters worked their spells. 

Plants have memory and affection. The seed of the plant 
feels, thinks and awakes from the grave though long buried, 



46 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

and shoots up a stem the same its mother had, and remem- 
bers every tint of color and fragrance, as the human embryo 
ill the womb of its mother remembers its former births and 
harks back through countless ages of evolution from the 
ancient sea, and during the nine months of its imprisoned 
life is seen to reflect the form of the fish and again reflect 
the hairy form of its animal progenitors. 

The sensitive plants seemed possessed of personality, 
some vegetables, like the tare of the South Sea Islands, are 
seized with violent fits of trembling. 

There is the weeping tree of the Canary Islands, a species 
of laurel which rains in the evening when the temperature is 
lower. The water comes out of the pores at the margin of 
the leaves and forms a little pond at the root of the tree. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 47 



CHAPTER VL 



COMIC AND WHIMSICAL TALES OF THE MOON. 

THE moon in ancient story was a magic land, a land of 
marvels, and illusion, where a man is now a dwarf, 
then again a giant, or a vagrant travelling with a pack upon 
his back, or he is the King of "lone tower," or a man tall as 
a fir tree and has two torches in his head (the two forks of 
the moon). 

In Celtic Romance, Joyce, p. 31, the names of the twelve 
sons of Balor the Mighty are "Large Heels," "Long Bodied," 
"Bare Knees," "Story Teller," and the wife of Balor was 
called "Crooked Teeth." 

Other names as "Conan the Bald," "Luga of the long 
arms," "Nuada of the silver hand," like the classical Pelops 
the "burnt face," Oedipus the "swelled foot," Jason the man 
with but one sandal again called "Cold Foot," whose feet 
grew through the house and hung out in the cold at night. 
Again the moon is described as a man with long black hair, 
hooked nose and shoes turned up at the toes. 

In Hindu he is called "shriveled foot," in Norse he is 
called Tyr the one armed man ; again in Celtic traditions he 
is the tall bent lad with one leg or the man of the "Iron 
Mask." 

And the moon children are the race who change their 
clothes and shed their teeth every month and had eyes of 
flame. 

Again he is a man seen coming with his two ears sticking 
through his old hat. All these are the new moon; or a man 



48 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

seen without a head and his two legs spread out upon a 
barrel. 

And a man having come to a fig tree and eaten until his 
nose grew a yard long, and again he came to a tree and ate 
until his nose was reduced to its normal size (at night he 
has the long nose which the sun cuts off by day), or a man 
buried in the ground all but his nose, and again a man whose 
nose was so long he couldn't hear himself sneeze. 

The moon was the man of many vocations and Jack of all 
trades — he is at once a smith, a wheelwright, a tanner, a fuller 
and bleacher, a dyer, a weaver, a cobbler, rag picker, scav- 
enger, water carrier, shoeblack, lamp-lighter and tailor. 

He plays the part of a charcoal burner, gipsy, slave, negro. 
Moor, a hunchback and lives in Horn Castle. At another time 
he is herald, trumpeter, ambassador, and messenger of the 
gods. 

The moon is a great actor and tragedian, story-teller, 
court-clown, jester, acrobat and magician. He is "Jack the 
Giant-Killcr." He has a magic cloak, ring, table-cloth, rod, 
and boots. 

He has an oil cruse which is never empty and a magic 
purse which is always full. 

That moon house is one of eternal change, of war and 
strife, whose tenants have a fire every month and flee for their 
lives like Lot from Sodom. 

He is that wandering ghost that now sits nude upon a 
dead body. Then enters and reanimates the corpse — that 
one who had carried off his wife's golden arm, and was 
haunted night and day with her cry, "Give me back my 
golden arm" — and on the third evening the golden arm of 
the new moon is brought back. 

Again it is the little bit of dough which covered the whole 
griddle — the leaven that leavens the whole lump. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 49 

The moon wa's that royal coin upon which the sun stamps 
his image and superscription — he is the handsome stranger 
who can unlock her castle, be the night ever so dark ; that 
moon which being struck with the white wand responds for 
good and gives good gifts, and again struck with the black 
or winter wand responds for evil and utters curses. She is 
that magic ball of yarn which unwinds until only a little 
thread of light is left and her husband, the sun, has the 
strength of twelve men (as "he" appears in twelve constella- 
tions). 

The moon becomes a comic figure and a jester. Upon 
the stage in endles's transformations he becomes a ring, a tree, 
rod, or serpent, and in his journey through the twelve con- 
stellations becomes a ram, bull, lion, scorpion, goat, fish, as 
well as man and woman, and at the end of the summer sea- 
son all this menagerie is gathered into the moon, which is 
the winter ark of Noah or Deucalion, which is the farm house 
of old Celeus, the heaven father. 

The moon was the great actor and tragedian of the sky. 
He invented time and made the first clock which would run 
for twenty-eight days. He could drop to sleep and shut the 
world in darkness — and again awake in a moment and flash 
light to the uttermost parts of the earth. 

He played every part known to the human stage from 
King to the court-clown and slave; he could take all forms 
and transformations — he could make himself tall as a pyramid 
and again shrink to the size of a needle. 

The dual nature of male and female prevails over the 
earth through the animal and vegetable world — sun and 
earth — day and night — summer and winter. 

In the attempt to reveal man to himself and explore the 
divine revelations, ideal forces were called up by symbolism 



50 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

and the celestial spirit was brought down to the stone or tree 
image or fetish objects by incantations and ritual. 

The moon was the author of magic science, and the 
ancient mysteries and the doctrine of sympathies between 
substance and shadow, and the visions in fairy-land or the 
ghost world. 

It was second sight — ^^seeing things in vision which could 
not be seen in the flesh. It was where the life of the moon 
as a dog or horse was bound up with that of his master, the 
sun. 

That ring of light is the first principle of life which sur- 
vives the conflagration of the moon and rises from its ashes 
and rends the grave or black vault of the moon. 

That pillar ran down to Hades, for when Ishtar the god- 
dess went down there she beheld that pillar or rod of life, 
the same which guided Aeneas through the mysteries of the 
underworld. 

At the root of that pillar which ran down to Hades the 
Egyptian god was buried — Admetus drew up his wife Alcestis 
from that dark moon pit after the sun had sat below the 
western horizon. 

Auguries and inauspicious days, shadows and echoes. 
Divination by Bible and key and shape shifting all taught 
by the moon. 

The Hebrews divined by lots and Urim and Thummin, 
and by ephod which meant "yes" and "no" — ^or good or evil — 
"won or lost." 

At the Feast of Tabernacles water was drawn from the 
v/ell of Siloam and poured upon the altar "in order that the 
rains of the earth might descend to you." This was an old 
rain charm pronounced in many lands of dearth. 

The spirits of the dead in belief could hurt those on earth, 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 51 

and at the Irish wake the living were in fear of the departed 
soul who might appear and injure the living, and for this 
reason they shaved their heads and tore their clothing to 
make themselves unrecognizable. 

The Chaldaean houses were purified by driving from them 
a host of evil spirits. 

Demons both material and immaterial belong to old world 
inhabitants of low culture, spirits of the sea, earth and sky, 
winds and devils of malignant type were propitiated by offer- 
ings. In ancient Babylonian demonology the demons con- 
trolled everything — every part of the human body. Even in 
Europe at the present day they believe in the corn spirit 
"Lyncanthropy" and the "Were Wolf." These demons were 
the cause of disease and death ; they still exist in epilepsy and 
are expelled by spells, sacrifice and prayers. 

The Norseman believed that a genius in animal form 
accompanied a man through life as a guardian, as the Mani- 
tou of the American Indian; that a man had his familiar, a 
tutelary spirit guardian or watcher, and they raised the souls 
of the dead, as the Witch of Endor raised the ghost of Sam- 
uel and as Odin rode to Hell to wake the wise Vale, the old 
prophetess, the winter moon. 

As the phantom appeared to Odysseus of old Folk belief, 
or the Incubi or bloodsuckers in sleep the Banshee or death 
warning, wild Huntsmen Hounds, fairies of fairy knolls, the 
corn spirit which had to be reverenced as a Demeter, the 
cereal deity as a man or a woman, sometimes as a child (the 
corn with an animal embodiment) and receive sacrifice. 

The black stone of the moon was called the "covering 
stone," and was over the pit of Hades. It was the black 
stone rolled off the sepulchre of Christ, and revealed His 
white linen robes, and the black stone Jacob rolled off the 
moon well for Rachel ; that pit of the under world was 



52 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

"Orcus," where dwell the images of deceased mortals, for the 
earth was a hollow dome through which the sun and moon 
passed and the scenery was copied from the moon, the same 
as the white river seem to girdle the moon was brought 
down to girdle the earth. 

The moon was an alien house ; the sun and solar race 
were strangers there and foreigners. 

Though the sun every year redeemed their land in spring, 
yet in the after summer time their old evil nature returned 
and the sun was banished or put to death. 

That moon house is where the Philistines hung up Saul's 
armor in the house of Ashtaroth (1 Sam. 31 :10) ; it is the 
sun's armor hung up on the moon temple at night and winter. 
It was in that temple of Dagon Samson the sun captive 
ground corn in winter captivity until his strength returned 
in spring, when he pulled down the old Temple to the ground. 

It is the house of Rahab the harlot, the last moon house 
of winter before entering- the spring signs. 

It is the house which Christ said He would destroy and 
rebuild in three days, for the moon is burnt out and arises 
from its ashes on the third day ; the house forever divided 
against itself which shall surely fall. 

*'Thou that dwellest between the cherubims shine forth. 
Turn again, O Elohim, and cause thy face to shine, and we 
shall be saved." 

It is the sun shining between the two arms of the moon. 
The name variously called Jehovah, Elohim, El Shaddai, 
Adonai or Javeh. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 53 



CHAPTER VH. 



LUNAR PLAYS AND AMUSEMENTS. 

PUBLIC SPORTS, AMUSEMENTS AND LUNAR 

PLAYS. 

PUBLIC sports and amusements were arranged under the 
sanctity of religion as in running, horse racing, football ; 
for in games they leaped for the slippers, they danced for 
the new moon ring, the Cinderella, the maid of the spring 
equinox. 

In Blind Man's Buff the moon man was blinded and 
dressed in hairy attire. The play was called Blind Buck and 
David for it originated when Christmas occurred in the sign 
01 Capricorn the goat ; he is the hairy Esau and covered with 
a goat skin. The one hoodwinked is then turned around 
three times, like the blind moon, and questioned. 

"How many horses has your father?" "Three — red, white 
and grey." (The three changes of dress or collars of the 
moon.) 

"Turn about three times, catch whom you may." 

Counting out rhymes were formerly priestly incantations 
by elimination. There is one left after all the rest have 
been counted out, and it is the new moon which comes on the 
stage, that one left of Lot's men, that one left to tell Odysseus 
the fate of his companions in the hands of Circe, the sor- 
ceress. 



54 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Jumping the broomstick from behind the door is the new 
moon leaping out of its confinement in the black moon castle, 
for the new moon was the broom that swept the dirt or the 
cloud off the moon. 

Dominoes have 28 pieces, white and black, for the num- 
ber of days and nights in a lunar month. 

Cards, 52 in a pack and 4 suits of 13 each, making 52 
cards, the number of weeks in a year. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 55 



WEDDING AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 

The old man who lived in the moon presided over mar- 
riage and tied the marriage knot with a silken cord, — 
the thread of the new moon which was also the cord cut at 
death. 

In a Chinese belief, Yue-Laou, "the Old Man of the 
Moon," unites with a silken cord all predestined couples which 
cannot be annulled ; that silken cord is the slender thread of 
the new moon which connects the two forks. 

In Hindu marriages the bride makes seven steps or steps 
into seven circles and joins her hands in a hollow form while 
repeating ceremony. The seven steps represent the seven 
months of winter for the spring wedding occurs in the seventh 
month, they are the number of the seven devils that went out 
of Mary Magdalen, the winter months. 

Again the maiden plighted troth by clasping hands through 
the hole of a tree or stone, the hole in the stone or tree rep- 
resented the cleft in the black moon stone where sun and 
moon clasp hands. 

The twin bone of a chicken or goose broken and then 
laid over the door represents the bone of the new moon 
broken, and the half ring put over the door before weddings — 
a lover's pledge. 

Marriages were solemnized at the time of the new moon, 
and the bride celebrated her "honey-moon ;" this was the 
honey-moon of Samson at midsummer in Leo when he mar- 
ried the harlot and took her into a new house for the wmter 
season. 

Samson, the sun, had reached his highest ascension at 



56 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

mid-summer in the constellation or the house of Leo, "The 
Lion ;" the end of the summer months here the sun chariot 
is always turned back toward the south, and here the winter 
harlot Delilah betrayed him to the winter Philistines. 

So closely are all our rites and ceremonies woven of lunar 
fabric that our marriage word "connubial" means to veil. 
In modern Egypt the bride is kept veiled and cannot be seen 
b} her husband until after marriage. Our women still wear 
lunar veils and the time for weddings was fixed at a plane- 
tary conjunction in India — the meeting of sun and moon. 
They still marry in some countries without having seen their 
betrothed according to the old lunar myth the wife has not 
seen her husband nor ever met, like Cupid and Psyche and 
told she had a beast husband, which is the Jacob who sleeps 
the first night with the dark moon, the sore eyed girl as 
Urvasi in Vedic who was never allowed to see Pururavas 
naked or without his garments, which is at night in sleep 
with his garments removed. The sun comes into the cham- 
ber of the moon but cannot see her for three nights ; as soon 
as the naked sun beholds the moon she will vanish. 

Under the old Spartan rule the bridegroom was compelled 
to visit his wife in the dark, suggested by the sun who visits 
the moon, his wife's chamber in the dark. 

In Layard's "Nineveh and Babylon" a marriage is 
described where the bride was led to the bridegroom's house, 
and kept in the corner of a dark room for three days during 
the festival before the bridegroom was allowed to approach 
her. 

When wine was drunk at Jewish weddings the glass was 
broken and the bridegroom walked three times round the 
bride and took her by the right hand even as the sun every 
month marches around the moon for the three dark nights 
before he will take her by the hand. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 57 



WITCHCRAFT. 

Witchcraft was born in prehistoric ages and was universal 
with the human race. Witches existed among all nations, 
savage and civilized and was strong in Greece and Rome and 
was a superstition of the old world and the wide world. It 
prevails to-day among savage and half civilized nations. 

All over Europe witches were daily executed. They 
raised storms and changed themselves to cats, hares, and wild 
beasts — rode on broomsticks, pokers, goats and dogs. 

Witchcraft was a supernatural power erroneously obtained 
by entering into a compact with the devil by which they 
abjured God and Christ and renounced the sacraments of the 
Church. 

A witch of the early times was the dispenser of spells and 
was in league with evil spirits. 

We quote frorn the most reliable statistics that in Eng- 
land during a period of two hundred years, over thirty thou- 
sand were executed for witchcraft and even this was outdone 
in other countries. 

In Geneva, Switzerland, five hundred "witches" were 
burned in three months of the year of 1515. 

In Scotland from 1560 to 1600, the number of victims 
for the forty years was 8,000, and this was fully equalled in 
France, Spain and Austria under papal bulls, as well as Pro- 
testant decisions, down to the time they were repealed by 
parliament in England and Scotland in the early part of the 
Eighteenth Century. 

From the time of the promulgation of the bull of Pope 
Innocent VIII against sorcery in 1484 until 1782, 300,000 



58 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

women perished on the imaginary charge of witchcraft. 
("Encyclopedia Americana.") 

It cost one hundred thousand lives in Germany alone 
between 1450 and 1650, and the old Puritan, Matthew Hop- 
kins, went through the country testing the people by piercing 
them with pins and needles under a commission of Parlia- 
ment, and in the County of Suffolk alone sixty persons were 
hanged for witchcraft in a single year. Bells were marked 
with inscriptions to give them power to drive away devils 
and lightning, and science was denounced and pulpit preach- 
ers made desperate effort to defeat science. 

Ben Franklin was branded as "the arch infidel" for draw- 
ing lightning from the clouds, and preachers rained anathe- 
mas upon him from the pulpit for putting up lightning rods 
to prevent God from striking with thunderbolts. 

Bells were rung to keep off witches and hail storms and 
days of prayer were appointed to end drought, which was a 
companion to witch hunting, under the old diabolical statute 
of Jehovah, the sun god, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to 
live" when no such thing as a witch ever had an existence; 
that shows how much the all-wise Jehovah knew. 

And every rite and ceremony in the Christian Church 
to-day is whim and witchcraft. Although we have made 
great reforms and have banished Original Sin, Satan, hell, 
torment and most of the Old Testament. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 59 



ZODIAC. 

The Zodiac contains twelve constellations and has the 
ecliptic or annual path of the sun for its central line. 

It is divided into twelve signs, each thirty degrees in 
length. 

Previous to this, in the older times, the Lunar Zodiac was 
older than the solar which indicated the monthly course of 
the moon around the earth, and was divided into twenty- 
seven or twenty-eight Lunar Mansions, in each of which the 
moon dwelt one day of the month, for in the older time the 
months were calculated by the moon which went around the 
earth and sky in about four weeks or twenty-eight days, and 
the months were calculated by the revolutions of the moon. 

The signs in their order begin at the Vernal Equinox or 
the place where the sun crossed the Equator when coming 
north in Spring and began at Aries, the Ram, but the older 
Lunar Zodiac was older than the solar, and was divided into 
tv/enty-seven or twenty-eight Lunar Mansions, in each of 
v/hich the moon was represented as dwelling during one day 
of the month. 

Invocation to the moon from the Babylonian, "O Moon, 
chief of the gods, king of the gods of heaven and earth, of 
the stars upon stars, which dwell in heaven great — into this 
temple when joyfully thou dost enter the holy buildings and 
the temple of The Great Tree.' " — From the "Records of the 
Past," vol. 5, p. 147. 

The moon was the original temple and dwelling of the 
gods. 

The moon pillar, that nightmare of the ancient world, 



60 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

built the Pyramids and founded the doctrine of immortality 
and regeneration having been brought down to earth by incan- 
tation. 

But old orthodox religions no matter how sacred or 
divinely inspired are fast giving away, and old fossil creeds 
are yielding to the continual growth and higher advance of 
religious thought. 

It was the wisdom of the moon, that magic looking glass 
that reveals the movements and positions of the sun as an 
index and keeps the divine records of the solar family. 

Our religion has come down from the ancient world filled 
with devil worshippers practicing mysterious rites — oriental 
priests and magicians dealing and communing with ghosts 
and disembodied spirits, that was the throne of God, the 
house of the silver door and the altar of sacrifice. 

There the little sun child (ring of the new moon) was 
born, the Moses in the reeds and rushes of that moon marsh, 
for the moon was the head fountain and source of waters to 
all the ancient world. 

The land of phantoms, of witches and ghosts' spells and 
enchantments, the land of giants and dwarfs, the hall of the 
divine masquerade, there occurred the transfiguration of 
Christ, the ghostland where the absent Sun as a spectral illu- 
sion was seen stalking upon the moon wrapped in his winding 
sheet at night. 

There upon the moon the dead awake and the disembodied 
spirits appear in fairyland. The moon was the stage of 
mythology, and the home of the gods. All the great trag- 
edies of the year were played upon the moon. 

The yearly tragedy of Adam and Eve and the serpent is 
still played upon the moon and earth every year. 

Sun and moon both furnished the scenery and decorations 
of the lunar stage. The parties are principally called by their 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 61 

badges and allegorical names, not from totemism but a high 
order of learned symbolism adopted by the priesthood. 

Simple ideas were expanded and characters were multi- 
plied to fill the stage, the one moon maiden became ten thou- 
sand to fill the Harem of Indra, the horse became a herd of 
horses, the seven became seven hundred, the ten became ten 
thousand. 

Behind this dark curtain of the moon there are artisans 
painting scenery and landscape, there are sculptors of ivory 
and carvers of precious stones. 

In that darkened chamber the fairies are weaving bright 
raiment for the Cinderella who will win the prince at the 
ball. 

The curtain rises and falls, there are changes of dress and 
position, servants, cup bearers, slaves and bond women wait 
upon the guests. 

Jewels are brought from foreign lands and the Jacob 
arrives with costly gems and the necklace of pearls. The 
banquet is provided with electric lamps, vases, salvers, spoons, 
knives, and rings, all of which are manufactured from the 
one ring of the moon — the magic table silently offers its 
gifts of all good things for the rich banquet, for the new 
moon of the spring equinox is the gospel of glad tidings, a 
phantom to which the great sun king gave a soul. 

It is nature's tragedy where sun and moon play a monthly 
rcle, when they are in conjunction and cross each other's 
track. It is then transferred to earth, which is in constant 
sympathy with all their movements. When they fail or 
retrograde, the other, too, wanes, and when they are in their 
plenitude of power the earth puts forth vegetation and all 
nature rejoices, for the earth and moon and sun were in con- 
stant sympathy. 

The moon has many names in the Hindu, called "maker 



62 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

of night," "marked like a hare," "lord of the constellations," 
"having cool rays," "white rayed," "marked like a deer," 
"lord of the lotus," "drawn by white horses" (names trans- 
lated from the Hindu). 

Again she is called "sunlit hill," land of rings, and called 
the black castle and the iron castle. 

The ring of the new moon had endless names — it was the 
hammer of Vulcan and Tubal Cain and the hammer of the 
Norse god Thor, the ox-goad of Shamgar and the flail of 
Gideon — it was the pen of Moses, the sword of God and the 
trump of the Archangel, the rod of creation, the plow of 
Noah the farmer, and of Cain the tiller, and of Elisha, who 
ploughed in the field with twelve yokes of oxen. It was the 
necklace of Harmenia and the girdle of Venus. It was the 
branding iron Xerxes used to brand the Hellespont — the fet- 
ters he let down in the sea to bind it and the whip with which 
he scourged the waters. 

It was the golden cup from which he poured the libation 
and the golden bowl which he threw in the Hellespont for a 
bribe. 

The moon was a magic lantern ; it is now a sunlit plain 
or a castle with towers, again a green, grassy lawn, or a 
gloomy forest, again a sea with a ship tossed on its waves — 
again a sea of milk or a sea of blood. 

It is the dove or quail, the prophet of spring, or the raven 
which forbodes the winter, or a wishing-stone, tree, cap, or 
a pair of scissors which cut all manner of garments out of 
the air, or a table cloth which provides everything the appe- 
tite may crave and all wishes gratified. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 63 



LATE TELESCOPIC REVELATIONS OF THE 

MOON. 

From the most remote times the moon was the most 
attractive object of the sky. From its many changes ot 
face, its connection with the ebb and flow of the ocean, and 
the supposed author of the dews and influence on human 
life and vegetation, it became the home of witchcraft and 
superstition. 

The moon is nearly spherical with a diameter of 2,163 
miles, a little more than a quarter of that of the earth, mov- 
ing at an average distance from the earth 239,000 
miles, its surface one thirteenth, and its volume one forty- 
ninth that of the earth. We can only see a little more than 
half of the moon or about three-fifths of the moon. It has 
no light of its own, and its interval from sunrise to sunrise, 
ic a month ; it has a long sunshine of two weeks, then a night 
of two weeks ; the temperature at the surface, even at the 
hottest, probably never rises above the freezing point of 
water (Professor Langley) and in the long night the tem- 
perature must fall to something like 200 degrees below zero. 
It has no air, no water, no clouds, no vegetation. 

The moon has rugged mountains from fifteen to twenty- 
five thousand feet high and crater holes twenty miles across 
and three or four miles deep with no air, no water, no clouds, 
and has the fearful cold of empty space hundreds of degrees 
below zero. 

We are 240,000 miles away from the moon. 

To a man standing on the moon the heavens above him 



64 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

■ire totally dark. Owing to the absence of air there is no dif- 
fused light in the lunar sky, consequently the heavens are 
as black as ink in full daylight. 

— Garrett P. Serviss. 

The moon shows great contraction, and has had great 
tidal disturbance caused by the earth, and she has great fis- 
sures, caused by cooling, and has absorbed all the air and 
water from the outside. Craters appear in almost every direc- 
tion, circular rings with diameters from half a mile to 100 
miles, for the moon is a burned-out world which has 
absorbed what little air or water it may have had. 

The great illusion ! Instead of angel choirs, a land that 
has no sound, instead of a holy hill of Zion and archangels we 
find a land of baleful shadows and ghostly spectres. 

Was ever a sight like this ! A scene beyond words. 

A Godless, soulless land of despair. 

Gone is our moonshine religion. We have been worship- 
ping ghosts for ages and the pillar that guided Israel through 
the wilderness is but a streak of moonshine and God's throne 
but a desert of dread. 

The telescope has been our revelator and not St. John of 
Patmos nor Moses. 

It has revealed to us not a garden of the gods but a 
mountain strewn with volcanic desolation that has no air, no 
water, not even a living thing. 

The moon is like myriads of other dark planets, lifeless 
and scattered through the universe — dark suns, supposed to 
be more numerous than luminous stars. 

The universe swarms with dead moons and lifeless worlds ; 
whose lights have gone out from the mindless, soulless uni- 
verse. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 65 

Billions of inhabited planets revolve around fixed stars, 
continually gathering an accumulation of cosmical dust, for 
motion had no beginning and space no limit. 

We are but cosmical dust — the solar system infinite and 
life universal. 

We have a man-made religion, the worship of the occult 
forces of Good and Evil, mysterious rituals, dark and eso- 
teric, handed down from the ancient highways of Asia, pro- 
phetic dreams and visions, communications with the Spirit- 
World and mysteries of Future Life. 

But old gods and religions have vanished and our present 
cannibal religion is already in its last throes. 

Our earth has an orbital speed of 18% miles per second 
as it travels around the sun (this is around the sun), but it 
is rushing together with the sun at the rate of about twelve 
miles per second toward a point in the northern sky, but 
the telescope had been improved and laid bare the caverns 
of the moon, and there arose a great mumur among the priest- 
hood, "who is he that has betrayed the gods," and it was 
found to be Galileo, and he was summoned and brought 
before the inquisition and there arose a great murmur among 
the people, saying, ''nay, this is Galileo, one of the most noted 
scholars in all Europe, and the idol of the people," but the 
priesthood cried out, "curse on his wisdom, he has betrayed 
the gods :" for at that time chemistry was considered a black 
art, and men of advanced ideas were confined in the mad- 
house. 

The works of Copernicus were considered heretical and 
the man who discovered the mariners' compass was accused 
of witchcraft. 

Galileo was forced by the inquisition to abjure the Coper - 
nican Theory and was detained in the palace of the inquisition 
and condemned as a heretic to incarceration and to recite once 



66 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

a week for three years the seven penitential psalms and 
became hopelessly blind. 

Science had at last outgeneraled religion, for the teles- 
cope had laid bare the throne, and the hiding place of the 
gods, who fled to the unknown realms of the ether as they 
did in the time of the Babylonian flood. 



PART II. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 
NUMBERS 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 71 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBERS. 

THE Orientals had great reverence for numbers and 
ascribed to them almost unlimited powers. Numbers 
belonged to the mysteries. The Ancients divined and pro- 
phesied by numbers as a part of religion. Numbei^s had 
rhythm, harmony and hidden properties. Numbers like letters 
to the ancients possessed mysterious virtues. 

Numbers were magical and prophetic by which fate and 
destiny were revealed, and a great many significations were 
attached to numbers as divinity, unity and intellect. 

Numbers were made to agree with preconceived ideas ; 
when once a number was established, as one predominating 
in nature, all things were pressed into its service. 

When seven became a divine number Thebes must have 
seven gates and Jacob must serve seven years and the nation 
must have seven wise men. 

In Egyptian belief Thoth (the moon) was the inventor of 
numbers. He measured time and was the scribe of the gods, 
and the number of gods and Cabiri varied according to the 
number of powers in which the cosmogonic energy was 
divided. 

Numbers among the Chinese had gender, the odd num- 
ber's were masculine, including one, and the even numbers 
feminine. 

The Abury temples contain according to Higgin's Ana- 
calypsis the cycle numbers 650-608-600-60-40-30-19-12. 



n > WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Many numbers were sacred and some divine, the way they 
reproduced themselves seemed like magic. 

The sun, moon and stars moved by numbers and reap- 
peared at their place of beginnng after a certain number of 
days, months and years for numbers, letters and speech were 
the gift of the gods. 

According to the conceptions of Pythagoras, numbers rep- 
resented the properties and essence of all things, and served 
as elements in the construction of the universe. 

Odd numbers were preferred by the ancients ; in Japan 
to-day houses are set one front and the next back of that 
Ime from the street to make the line uneven, and in height 
the same care to make one high and the next low, for there 
\> luck in the odd numbers, and the Chinese have their streets 
zigzag. 

Pliny says, ''Why is it that we believe that odd numbers 
are the most effectual and that there is luck in odd num- 
bers?" 

With the Chinese, odd numbers belonged to heaven and 
even numbers to the earth. 

Five and ten among early races were the most noted and 
perfect numbers, for it was by, the fingers that men first 
learned to count, and used in counting and numbers still 
called digits or fingers, and they measured by hands and 
fingers. 

The Esquimaux could only count to ten. The Australians 
could count only up to four, the Brazilian Indians up to 
three, and up to ten was the limit and stood there. After 
that it was many fives and many tens of fingers. 

With the ancients, numbers were an irresistible power, 
for they represented the elements and the gods and powers of 
nature and became associated and identified with them. 

The Romans measured by tens and hundreds. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 73 

The Babylonian god Merodach cries to his heavenly 
father Hea for assistance in casting-out an evil spirit from 
the afflicted one. "O my father, the baneful charm like an 
evil demon acts against the man." 

Hea speaks, "A number make, this man is unwitting: by 
means of the number he enslaves thee." 

Hea says to his son Merodach, "The number thou know- 
est not; the number let me fix for thee." 

Numbers were as efficient as words. — "Ancient Babylon- 
ian Charms." Records of the Past, vol. third. 

Among all ancient nations the planets ruled the affairs of 
man. 

The Egyptians divided the human body into thirty-six 
parts, and each part was under the protection and govern- 
ment of one of the decans or aerial demons who presided 
over the triple divisions of the twelve signs. 

There was no profane science. Medicine, physics, and 
astronomy were all priestly and religious, for letters and 
numbers were all revealed either by a natural or spiritual 
revelation. 

Ten in the Pythagorean system is said to be the most 
perfect of all numbers comprehending in itself all difference 
of numbers, all reasons, species and proportions of numbers. 



NUMBER TWO. 



Two belongs to the oriental dualism of good and evil, day 
and night, sun and moon. 

In the Dualistic theories, the conflict of the two divinities, 
good and evil, as two brothers, are common to civilized nations 
in general. 



74 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



THE DIVINE THREE. 



THE TRINITY. 

In every world a triad shines forth of which a monad is 
the ruling principle. "Ancient Mysteries of Thomas Taylor." 

The Universe was a three-fold world, one above the other. 

The trimurti as creation, preservation, and destruction 
was the union of one god in trinity. 

And that new moon contains the three hidden rings in 
one, the trinity visible on the third night of the moon's dark- 
ness. 

The three-fold trinity of the Norsemen Odin, Vile, and 
Ve; Odin, Hoener and Loder; Odin, Thor and Balder. 

The equilateral triangle was one of the symbols of the 
Greek Bacchus and Hindu Siva ; it has three sides. 

The Hindus wrote the name of their supreme power in 
three letters, A U M, correspnoding to his three dominions 
containing the trinity of beginning, middle and end, and our 
'T am" is a corruption of this, and our GOD contains these 
three significant letters, so does the Hebrew Y O D. 

Ewald has shown that the Phoenician Trinity corresponds 
to the old Accadian, and that these three gods were but names 
of the sky, earth and underworld. 

Three is heard in trio, triumph, trumpet, throne, trident 
and three toothed, for the first ring of the moon is made of 
three rings, three in one, for it is not visible until the third 
night; three nights in making, and the Lx)rd passed by Elijah, 
first as a whirlwind, then as an earthquake, and finally as a 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 75 

still small voice, and that voice is the first ring of the new 
moon, appearing on the black moon on the third evening of 
her darkness. — I Kings, 19:11. 

There were three grand divisions of the physical uni- 
verse, sometimes the heaven, the earth and underworld, or 
three elements, air, earth and water. 



THIRD DAY WHIMS. 

The fortune teller turns her teacup upside down and 
three times round as the new moon or revelation of light 
appears, on the third day of her darkness. Sometimes the 
Bible is used for divining, instead of the cup, while repeating, 
"Turn, Bible, turn." 

The throwing of three handfuls of dust in the grave 
repeating, "Earth to earth," "dust to dust," "ashes to ashes," 
was an ancient Egyptian custom, for the dead moon arises 
on the third day, so did Christ, and the Christians, it has 
been said, cannot call a single rite or ordinance their own. 

Women walked three times round a church in order to 
have children, for our church and temple represent the moon ; 
the new moon ring is born on the third day. 

As in Sutteeism of the Hindus burning the dead was moon 
mimic, believing that the soul went out with the flickering 
flame, even as the moon is burned to be raised to life on the 
third day. 

Again imitated by keeping watch three nights over the 
dead for the three dark nights of the moon. 

It was by a pilgrimage to the different stations and holy 
meeting places and fasting three days that a blessing was 
obtained. 



7(i WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Candles are kept burning beside a corpse three nights to 
frighten away evil beings. 

And treasures were revealed by dreams, but must dream 
the same dream three nights in succession and not tell anyone. 
If any one is told they will find the money all turned to char- 
coal, that is, if the dream is extended for three dark nights 
of the moon she will reveal the gold which is the new moon 
purse. 

Pythia, the priestess of Apollo, at Delphi, sat upon a tri- 
pod or stool of three feet. 

As the light had to be born again in the moon, so must 
man be reborn, and every child was said to be first born of 
the moon and then flashed to earth as by an electric wave on 
the third night. 

That is why Jacob was obliged to sleep three nights with 
Leah, the sore-eyed woman (dark moon), before he could 
enjoy Rachel, the bright new moon. 

The marriage ceremony of all nations was a moon fes- 
tival, and the passage of the sun and moon upon a wedding 
tour to a new constellation in the three dark nights of the 
moon. In a Polish custom, the bride walks three times 
around the fire then sits down and washes her feet. 

The wife in primitive times had to be chosen from a 
stranger race or clan. 

Making a love bridge represents the white ring of the 
i:ew moon of spring thrown across the dark moon water. 
Sometimes it represents the ford of the moon waters or the 
bridge over which the spring sun crosses at the spring equi- 
nox, on the third evening of the moon's darkness. 

In Egyptian marriage customs the husband cannot see his 
wife's face until the wedding is three days old, and again a 
man divorces his wife by simply repeating 'T divorce you" 
three times— that is, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 11 

divorce you," and in this same way the bans or public 
proclamations are repeated three times in the Christian church. 

The three classes of Gods in Vedic of the heavens, air and 
earth. 

The Trimurti is a modern conception of Brahma, Vishnu, 
Siva. 

The old triad of Babylonia was Na, Ea and Mulge, which 
became under the great sacerdotal reform and new official 
religion, the union of Accadian and Semitic, the trinity of 
Anu, Ea and Bel, and these were all children of Zicu, or 
Zicara, "the sky." 

There were three beings of the lower world, Hermes was 
the three headed or tricephalus, and Cerberus, the infernal 
dog, was three headed, and most of the gods and goddesses 
were triform. Zens was triform, Diana was triform, but gods 
could take any form in mystic story of three smiths, the three 
gods in one, the trinity and triad, tripod, trefoil, tripartite 
cross and bulFis head, are the common property of the ancient 
nations. 

We see what three means when the three brothers, Jupiter, 
Neptune and Pluto, divide heaven, the sea, and underworld 
between them. Jupiter had the dominion of the air. A three- 
fold world seems well defined among the Egyptians as Nut 
the sky, Seb the earth, and Amenti or Hades the underworld. 
There are triads of father, mother and son, triads of 
heaven, earth and lower world, triads of beginning, middle 
and end, triads of creation, preservation, destruction. 

Three is the most common for the three worlds or ele- 
ments, as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva ; Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto ; 
Odin, Henir, Loki ; Jehovah, Christ, Satan ; Horus, Ra, Tum ; 
Heaven, Earth and Underworld. 

And this three fold nature was expressed by a triangle, 
thus A \ it represented also the three parts of time as am, 



78 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

was, been or Jehovah, the being who was and is and is to 
come, and three became divine. Yod represented the idea of 
God and Jovah (I am) that is God exists, which was too holy 
to speak; for which Adonai was substituted in its place, that 
is Adon or lord. 

At the Passover they ate three unleavened cakes. Abraham 
at his tent saw three angels and Sarah prepared cakes of three 
measures of meal for the angels (Genesis 18:6); correspond- 
ingly there were three natures to man. 

The Hindu God Brahma said, 'T am the beginning, middle 
and end." 

The mysteries were celebrated for three days, servants 
bowed three times to the King. 

The trinity of Hindu gods was Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, 
the three persons of the Hindu trinity spirit, matter and time, 
the Babylonian Anu, Ea and Bel. 

Egyptian, Horus, Ra and Tum. 

Christian, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. 

Osiris, Isis and the child Horus were the great divine triad 
of Egypt from which our Joseph, Mary and Christ are 
modeled. 

The Hindu priests assume the sacred cord of three threads, 
the mystic symbol. 

But the great Hindu triad of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva is 
of late date. The old Vedic gods of the first rank were Indra 
and Agni and after these Varuna, Mitra and Surya. 

In the early trial of Babylonia were the three Gods, Anu, 
Pel and Ea, who represented respectively the heaven, the 
earth and the sea. 

Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth. Xisuthrus 
had three sons, Zerovanos, Titan and Tapetos. 

The Hindu Manu had three sons, Sama, Cama, and Pra- 
Japati (Faber's "Origin of Pagan Idolatry.") 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 79 

The German Mannus, son of the god Tuisco, had three 
sons who became the ancestors of the Germans. 

Polyphemus had by Galatea, three sons, and Saturn had 
three, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. 

Mercury was called Triceps, Bacchus Triambus, Diana 
Triform. 

Prosperine had three heads, the Trimurti was the tri- 
mighty of the Saxons, the trimegas of the Greeks and the 
termagnus of Latins. — Celtic Druids. Chap. V., Sec. 19, 
Higgins. 

Under the worship of Fo in China they have the triple 
god. 

The triple God is all over Siberia and in the Imperial 
collection at Petersburg is the figure of a triple god seated 
upon a lotus, and in all these they remain one in essence, one 
in three and three in one. 

A being triform, according to Faber, was worshipped by 
all the ancient nations of the earth. 

God worshipped under a triple form in India as Brahma, 
Vishnu and Siva. 

In Persia Ormuzd, Mithra and Ahriman, they are creator, 
preserver and destroyer. 

Roman, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. 

The Persians believed the origin of the gods was from 
the three elements fire, earth and water, hence three natures in 
deity and man. 

In the Norse system there were three gods, Odin, the 
father of the slain, Loki, the destroyer, and Haenir, who 
wrought the hope of man at the beginning of the world, 
the redeemer. 

The first trinity (Asgard, Gods, p. 56) is Odin, Vile and 
Ve, which correspond to air, water and fire. They were sons 
of Bor. 



80 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Three was the basis of Druidical worship, sacred officers 
were divided into priests, prophets and bards, the three 
classes in Hebrew as High Priests, Priests and Levites. 

Dodona, the most ancient shrine of the Greeks, produced 
oracles by the vibrations of a caldron struck with a whip, 
the lash of which consisted of three chains. The caldron 
represented the dark moon and the lash is the sun rod of the 
new moon ring, which is throughout mythology the triad or 
three in one. 

At the fire festival on St. John's Eve, held upon the hills, 
men, women, children and cattle were driven or leaped through 
the fire. 

As in the Norse tale of the maiden called Gulwig, who was 
passed three times through the fire and every time appeared 
more beautiful like the thrice born of the mysteries. 

Hecate was a triple goddess and the sphinx triple bodied. 
They were different forms of the same conception. 

At the Passover they ate three unleavened cakes. 

In the ternary classification of the ancient Druids of Britain 
who abounded with triads of which they had three hundred, 
they enumerate : 

The three first settlers called the pillars or civilizers, three 
benevolent tribes, three usurping tribes, three awful events, 
three chief casters' works, three great regulators, three con- 
trollers, benefactors and primary sages. 

Three masters of mystery and so forth. 

Three immense stones were set up in the stone circles of 
Britain to represent the cell of life. 

The thrice repeated oath of the Hindu was sacred and 
inviolable and if not fulfilled, vengeance was repeated upon 
the offender. 

Enchanters use three leaved plants, such as enchanters' 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 81 

night shade, which is three leaved and its parts arranged in 
threes. 

Arabia and Gaul were divided each in three parts. 

There are three colors on our flag. 

Jonah and Christ were three days in the pit of the dark 
moon. 

Noah had three sons, because there were three worlds or 
three seasons. 

An old Arabian legend says Jospeh was in the pit three 
days, which was true; the moon pit in which he was cast 
is dark every month for three days, for he is the first ring of 
light upon the moon. 

Persians believed in three elements, fire, earth and water. 

Christ has three trials. 

The cock crew three times for Peter, and there were three 
kings at Christ's birth, the three seasons. 

Athena was the daughter of Neptune and the Tritonian 
marsh, which means the new moon born on the shore of the 
moon sea or in the trough of the new moon ring. 

The three original seasons were spring, summer and 
winter, the autumn was added afterward. 

Three among all the ancients was the Chief of Magic 
numbers for it contained within itself a beginning, middle 
and end. A trinity of three persons in one god. 

Neptune had a trident and the thunderbolt of Jove was 
three forked. 

Siva, the Hindu god, had a trident three pronged. 

There were three visible divisions of the universe, heaven, 
earth and mid-air. This was perhaps the origin of the sacred 
number three. In its multiplications it always reproduces it- 
self, hence the number became a symbol of eternity. 



82 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

It is a number you cannot destroy: 

2X9=IS 6X9^:54 

3X9=27 7X9=63 

4X9=36 8X9=72 

5X9=45 9X9=81 

adding the two figures of each product you again obtain nine, 
and each of the products is a common multiple of three and 
each one of the products divisible by nine. 

Three was the most divine and sacred of all numbers, it 
was the number of the trinity of gods. Mind Columbus set out 
with three ships from Spain on his voyage to discover America 
and from Porto Rico again Ponce de Leon set 'sail in three 
brigantines to discover the fountain of perpetual youth. 

The words of the Semitic languages (Hebrews, Aramaeans 
and Arabs) are all triliteral symbols. Every word has three 
letters and only three which constitutes the skeleton of the 
language. ("Ridpath Races.") 

Among Greeks at the time of sacrifice the altar was 
sprinkled three times with a laurel branch using holy water. 

The obolus was a three cent piece of silver placed under 
the tongue at death, the three represented the three rings of 
the new moon in one, which have been welding for the three 
dark nights and appear as the three cent piece to redeem the 
dead moon. 

For creation, preservation and destruction were the three 
principles of the universe. 

The triad A U M of Asia was the triad of the new moon, 
the three magic letters or the three magic words of old 
Wainamoinen of the Kalevala, the seed ring which Waina- 
moinen set in his moon ship. In the most ancient conception 
the three fates were one and called Urd but were afterward 
divided into a Trinity. — Asgard and Gods, 223. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 83 

Antigone sprinkled dust three times on the corpse of her 
brother's remains, which was equivalent to interment (three 
dark nights of the moon.) . 

In Arabia a guest is entertained for three days as a rule 
and a prescribed limit. 

Neptune had a trident; even the dog, Cerberus of Hades, 
must have three heads, that dog is the three headed god of 
India and three gods with one head of the Christians, it is the 
one god in unity who guards the treasures of the year through 
the dark period of winter. 

The three is expressed by a triangle. It is one of the sides 
of the pyramid. 

It is expressed by a god of three eyes, and this is the 
reason we have three degrees of comparison and the third 
time conquers as the third shot of the sun wins upon the 
moon on her night of darkness. 

At the door of Hades stood the three headed watchdog, 
Cerberus, and the Egyptians gave three cries at the grave of 
the dead, and Charon required an obolus or three cent piece 
of silver for passage money, and at an Episcopal burial the 
sexton gives three shovels of dirt in the grave, saying at each 
time, "Dust to dust, ashes to a'shes, earth to earth." 

We have the three shouts in court from the cryer "O yes" 
or "hear ye" three times when he announces the sitting of the 
next court, and three groans were given for contempt. 

The third trial conquers and the third blast of the trumpet 
or beat of the drum, the thrice repeated injunction. 

And all this because the moon sleeps three days, before 
it will reveal the hidden word or the buried treasures or heave 
up Jonah, the hidden ring. 

For the universe was divided in three parts, heaven, earth 
and hell or the underworld, and the gods were three, the 
trinity. 



84 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

They are the three mites of the widow cast in the black 
box of the moon. 

That is old Pandora's box, the woman of all gifts. 

The divining witch cup found in Benjamin's sack on the 
third day of the journey was the cup of the new moon and 
the priest repeats Amen three times at the end of his discourse. 

This wisdom came at the third stroke of the moon rod, 
or at the third word or thrice repeated charm word; on the 
third day Jonah arose from the moon deep. 

At the third day Christ arose from the same place. 
The divine fasted and slept three nights in the moon 
temple to obtain a revelation. 

It was the third dream of Pharoah or the third night sleep 
of the moon that brought the revelation to Nebuchadnezzar 
that hand writing or the golden letters upon the black wall of 
the moon, at the third night of her darkness. 

It was at the third crow of the cock that memory came 
back to Peter. 

Again the three days' journey so often repeated in the 
sacred writings. 

Most of mythology was written under a year of three 
seasons, the time of sowing, of harvest, and of the inundation 
of the Egyptians, and in Babylonian three gods divided the 
universe, Anu, Bel and Ea. 

Sometimes three stands for the three dark nights of the 
moon, again the three seasons, again the three elements or the 
three worlds. 

Hel rode on a three legged horse. 

Multiples of three, as three times three, seven times three, 
ten times three and three hundred continually occur in 
mythology. 

The triangle in a circle represented the three seasons. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 85 



NUMBER FOUR. 

The sacred four was marked out by the sun at the two 
equinoxes and solstices, and the points connected by lines into 
a square, and the sacred square is the ground included between 
the four cardinal points. 

Among the red men the Winnebagoes place four sentinels 
a<- the four cardinal points, and the Scandinavians have four 
dwarfs. 

The Hebrews had the four quarters of the heaven and 
earth represented by four animal figures, and have four let- 
ters for the name of their God, and the heavens propped up 
by four pillars. 

We have a four armed cross and four weeks to the month. 

Each tribe of the Germans was dvided into four classes, 
nobles, freemen, vassals and slaves. 

In Ezekiel, Ch. 1, we have four living creatures, and 
every one had four faces and four wings. 

The Hindu Brahma has four heads and Krishna has four 
arms. 

The Oriental gradation of the four classes or castes is on 
the same scale of deterioration as the four ages from the 
golden age of spring to the iron age of winter. 

The Aztec victim was marched four times around the 
temple before his heart was torn out. 



86 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



NUMBER FIVE. 

The letter A is an abbreviation of the Saxon Ane which 
meant one, the letter A in Hebrew meant one or unity and 
the letter A retain's the form of the five stars — in Aries, which 
is the first sign of the Zodiac. 

The Ace of Spades represents the black moon, the wise 
man, the leader of the pack, that ace is the thumb, the chief of 
the five fingers. 

To the Nahuas, the fingers five were the five fates or five 
works or **five fields," for by the use of his fingers and hands, 
man worked out his destiny. 

There were five primordial elements, earth, air, water, fire 
and ether. And the five colors and the five musical notes were 
created in reference to the same number with the Japanese. — 
"Griff's Religion of Japan." 

There were five planets of the Babylonians, — Merodach, 
Ishtar, Ninib, Nergal, and Neba, — corresponding to the Jupi- 
ter, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Mercury of the Romans. 

There were five colors — blue, white, green, yellow and 
red — among Brahmans, and Brahmans have five sacred obser- 
vances. Five is a favorite number among Buddhists. 

There were five kinds of knowledge, for at that time there 
were but five months, — five for summer and five for winter. 

The first numbers were the fingers, one finger raised as I, 
two fingers raised as H, three fingers HI, four a's HH, up to 
five, which was the four fingers crossed by the thumb which 
was contracted to V, and ten was a double X or two V's 
joined at the apex. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 87 

The first week known was of five days and represented by 
the thumb and four fingers, and after that the six day week. 

The old lunar year at first consisted of ten months, — five 
summer and five winter. It seems that five and ten were 
used long before astronomical numbers as complete and 
always retained after the solar numbers six and twelve. 

Five became the hand that moved the revolving year and 
had five fingers. It turned the celestial fire drill and was 
succeeded by the week of six days and then by seven, and 
it would seem that five had at one time represented the five 
moon kings of the ancients or half the year at a time when 
the year was divided among ten heroes, a number more 
ancient than the later division twelve months. 

There were five telchines who were sons of the sea and 
powerful enchanters. 

There were five planetary divinities exclusive of sun and 
moon, making seven. 

Five stars — the "rainers" — stood in the face of the Bull 
in the constellation of Taurus. 

In Astrology the universe was expressed as the four re- 
gions or the four quarters of the sky with the sun in the 
Zenith. 

The Chinese have five capital virtues, humanity, justice, 
politeness, wisdom and rectitude. Their musical instrument 
called a kin has five strings. 

In the Hindu philosophy the body consists of five elements 
to which it returns, and they were space, air, fire, water and 
earth. 

The Egyptians enumerated five elements, and chief of the 
five was the celestial ether, which was Ammon the Egyptian 
Jupiter. It was the vital ether which quickened all animated 
nature. 



88 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

The qualities of the sun and moon in Egyptian belief were 
five — fire, water, air, earth and a quickening spirit or agency, 
and these five objects were gods and given names. To the 
animating ether, Jupiter ; to fire, Vulcan ; to the earth, Deme- 
ter or Ceres ; to water, Oceanus ; and to the air, Minerva. 
(Diodorus, Book I.) 

Cadmus destroyed all but five serpents in the building 
Thebes (he chose five) and David chose five stones to dethrone 
the winter giant Goliath. Five kids were slain at Sodom in 
spring before entering the spring equinox, or the month of 
renewal. 

Abigail rode upon an ass with five damsels of hers that 
went after her when she rode to David and became his wife. 
It was the wedding of sun and moon in spring (1st Samuel 
25:42). 

Buddha had five disciples and there were five wise virgins 
and five foolish who took no oil. 

The chief priest at the human sacrifice of the Aztecs had 
five attendants dressed in white who ofificiated at the altar 

The Chinese left the land of the five summits and the four 
canals to settle in the far east. 

The Olympic games were celebrated every fifth year, and 
the Olympic festival continued five days. 

There were five lords of the winter Philistines and they 
gave to the Israelites as a trespass offering at the time they 
sent back the Ark the images of five golden mice and five 
golden emerods (1st Samuel 6:3). 

The five Kings war against Gideon (Joshua 10), the Dan- 
ites sent five men to seek out an inheritance, the five inter- 
callary days. (Judges, ch. 18). 

It is the king and five others, again it is the princess and 
five maids. 



I 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 89 

According to Plutarch, five wax candles were used at mar- 
riages. 

Mt. Meru was surrounded by four other sacred moun- 
tcJns at the cardinal points or supporting mountains, which 
completed the sacred number five. 

Japan had a national "fifth day," a day of rest, instead of 
one in seven. 

The Hindu people had the "Pancha tantra" of five books, 
and the Hebrews have the "Pentateuch" containing five books. 

A sacrifice to celestial gods was with an odd number, but 
sacrifice to terrestrial with an even number. 

Plutarch's Numa- — "Numas Precepts" in Chinese numerals, 
days with odd numbers are strong and the even are weak. 

The cross of five dots is found as old as the bronze 
period of the Lake-Dwellers and on Etruscan tombs. 

A picture was found in Herculaneum. It is of a marriage 
v/here a sorceress is divining with five stones. 

Five was a complete number. Ireland was early divided 
by ancient geographers before the Christian era into five 
zones. 

It will be found continued in the five "Hance towns" and 
the "five towns of Aragon" on the frontier of Aragon and 
Navarre, to the extreme of the Pyrennees. There were the 
five cities of the Plain and five Kings of Sodom. 

Again there were five kings of the Amorites who went out 
to fight with Joshua (Josh. 10:5). 

Five wounds were given to Christ. 

The Koran commands five prayers five times a day. 

The Hindu makes the five daily offerings. 

Five crosses adorn the altar slab in churches, — the num- 
ber of Christ's wounds. 

Egyptians had a five-rayed star of horns. 



90 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

And the sun cross as a six-rayed star was found with the 
Hittites. 

The Buddhists, in Buddhistic lore, Mongolians, especially 
the Lamaites, have the five sacred in preference to the seven, 
as five zones and five planets. 

Buddha was followed by five disciplines who deserted him. 

Five husbands had that woman at Christ's well, and Drau- 
padi the heroine of the Hindu epic of the Mahabharada mar- 
ried the five Pandu princes, who shared her in common. 

With the Creative Council of five gods at Hermopolis, the 
"House of the Five," its temple became "the temple of the 
five," — they are Thot and the four auxilliary gods of Egypt. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 91 



NUMBER SEVEN. 

The seven days of the week were given to the seven plan- 
ets, which were all that were known at that time, — that is, 
sun, moon and five planets. There were seven stars in the 
cluster of the Pleiades and in the Great Bear and seven col- 
ors to the rainbow. 

The Bull (Taurus) originally opened the year he held the 
Pleiades, the seven stars of spring. 

Throughout all nations the planets were assigned to the 
days of the week, or the days of the week were called after 
tlicm the seven day cycle, (Higgins' Anacalypsis) and the 
same day allotted to the same planet universally over the 
world. 

These planets became the Rishis of the Hindus and the 
Archangels of the Persians and Jews and the Archites of the 
Deluge. 

The paths of the seven, that is, the five visible planets 
and the sun and moon making the seven rishis or great gods. 
All lie within this Zodiacal belt. 

The seventh sign — the sign of spring, was healing in the 
spring, the seventh month. 

The seventh well healed Naman the Syrian, and the sev- 
enth son was the healer. 

The seven planets of the Assyrians and Persians had 
power over the elements and ruled the sea and the rivers. 

The earth was at first divided into seven zones in stages 
one above another like the pyramid, but later it was divided 
into four houses, as in Egypt, corresponding to the cardinal 
points and like that of the Hebrew four. 



92 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 



Canaan was originally divided among seven nations. 
England was divided into seven kingdoms under the rule 
of the Saxons called the Heptarchy. 

Jacob served seven years for his wives (Genesis 7:2). 
Dan. 4:32. — Nebuchadnezzar driven forth to eat grass as 
an ox until seven times should pass over him, which are the 
seven months of winter. 

In Chaldea seven times had the body of the sick man to 
be anointed with the purifying oil. By sevens had the knot 
to be tied by the witch, and seven times must the sick man be 
dipped in the water. 

There were seven archangels of the Jews, and consequently 
seven Christian churches. 
There were seven saints : 

St. George of England. 
St. Denis of France (Dionysius). 
St. James of Spain. 
St. Anthony of Italy. 
St. Andrew of Scotland. 
St. Patrick of Ireland. 
St. David of Wales. 
There were seven wise masters. 
Seven wonders. 

Seven sciences of the Middle Ages, and they were Gram- 
mar, Logic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Astrology, Arithmetic and 
Music. 

The Egyptians had seven mortal sins and sprinkled blood 
seven times upon the altar. 

The Memnonium of Thebes uttered the seven mysterious 
vowels to the Egyptian priesthood. 

In the Astrological and Cabalistic book of the Apocalypse, 
John is partial to seven and twelve. Seven is repeated 
twenty-four times and twelve is repeated fourteen times. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 93 

There were the seven magnificent Gods of the Babylonian 
pantheon. 

And the seven-headed serpent of the Accadians "which 
lashed the waves of the sea," and the seven spirits "born 
without father or mother" in the encircling abyss of the 
ocean. 

Clean beasts were taken in the ark by sevens and the ark 
rested in the seventh month (Gen. 8:4). 

There were seven good kine and seven good ears in 
Pharaoh's dream. 

There were seven gates to the entry of Hades, and at 
each one Ishtar is divested of ornaments and apparel until 
she arrives naked at the last gate. 

There were seven altars of Balaam and we have seven 
days in our week only because they knew of but seven plan- 
ets, and they gave a day to each. 

At the seven gates of Thebes each had upon it the name 
of a planet. 

The Egyptians divined by fashioning words from every 
third and seventh letter. 

The number seven is the five miraculous loaves and the 
two small fishes. 

Thebes of Boeotia was called Heptapylos from seven gates 
one within another. 

Rome was built on seven hills. 

The City of Ionia or the Syrian Antioch was built on seven 
hills. 

And there were seven subterranean inclosures of the King- 
dom of Queen AUat, the mistress of the Babylonian Hades. 

The seventh day of the seventh month is one of the greatest 
festival days of Japan, it is the seventh of July (Japanese 
fairy world). 



94 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

The ancient Egyptians walked the sacred cow seven times 
round the temple at the winter solstice (Dupuis). 

There were the seven Sabbaths of years or forty-nine 
years. 

There were seven stones consecrated to the seven planets. 

There were seven doors to the cave of Mithras. 

Pan had a pipe of seven flutes and Apollo a lyre of seven 
strings. 

There were seven stories of the tower of Babylon sur- 
mounted by the eighth, which represented the sun. 

There were the seven great spirits of the Persians, which 
became the seven Archangels of the Jews. 

And the virtue will be in the touch of the seventh sign 
of spring in Taurus the Bull at the spring equinox, as Scorpio 
will be the seventh and evil touch at the autumnal equinox. 

They are the seven ears of corn and kine in Pharaoh's 
time. 

The book of fate was composed of seven books and the 
seven prophetic rings of the Brahmans had on each the name 
of a planet. 

It is said the number seven is used more than three hun- 
dred and sixty times in the Hebrew scriptures. 

The seven notes of music were used in chanting the praises 
of the sun. 

The Egyptians had the seven mysterious vowels and the 
seven divine rivers. 

The Phoenician Cabiri called "The Great Ones" were the 
special Gods of sailors and were seven, and with Esmund 
became eight. Esmund was the youngest son of Sydik of 
great beauty. Venus fell in love with him ; he corresponds to 
the Syrian Adonis and Hebrew Joseph. 

The Cabiri invented ships and presided over navigation. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 95 

That is why Jacob must serve seven years for Rachel, which 
was the period of the sun's exile and inferiority in winter, 
and is released in spring at the seventh month. And the 
apprentice served seven years to learn his trade. And the 
minor was of age at twenty-one, or the three times seven. 
The sick man was healed in the seventh sign or seventh 
month. Jericho was betrayed by the harlot, the winter 
moon, in the seventh month. 

Beasts were taken in the ark by sevens, and the ark 
rested in the seventh month, which was the spring. 

The Jews were carried captive in the seventh year (Jer. 
524:28). 



96 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



NUMBER EIGHT. 

All the ancient nations acknowledged and taught the hid- 
den properties of numbers. 

The Babylonian Marduk holds in his hands the eight 
wands of fate; in the Egyptian the sun was anciently ex- 
pressed as an eight-spoked wheel. 

Eight originated at first from the four cardinal points and 
then increased to eight by the four intermediate ones. 

The temple of Bel at Babylon was a pyramid of eight 
square stages. 

The seven Cabiri are the seven planets and a chief like 
Esmund or Ptah is added to make eight, who was the sun. 

The Buddhists have "the eight-fold Holy Path" and the 
"eight spiritual states." 

The Hindoo prostrates upon the ground with eight mem- 
bers — two hands, two feet, two shoulders, with forehead and 
chest. 

The Egyptian gods were divided into three or more orders, 
the first order of eight gods, and second order of twelve, and 
third the unknown. 

Sacrifice on eighth day (Exodus 24:30.) Thou shalt ofifer 
the first-born; seven days shall it be with his dam and on 
the eighth thou shall give it me. The eighth is one the first 
quarter of the moon. 

In dividing the month of twenty-eight days into four parts 
or four quarters, they become the 8th, 15th, 21st and 28th. 

The Egyptians had eight great gods. These seven 
Cabiri of the Phoenicians were all the sons of one great 
father called Sydik "the just," and these eight formed the 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 97 

great gods of the Phoenicians and correspond to the eight 
gods of the Egyptians (Wilkinson, Egypt, 11:483.) 

The Cabiri are the seven planets. In the Egyptian Phtha 
was added for the eighth. Again the same in Phoenician we 
have Esmund, son of Sydik the just and brother of the seven 
Cabiri. Esmund signifies the eighth, each seven has a patron 
at the head and this Ogdoad which embraced the eight primi- 
tive gods of Egypt. 

The Phoenician women mourned for Adonis and sought 
for him seven days, and on the eighth he was found, revived 
in the sprouted seed of barley, lettuce, and fennel, and his 
phallus was drawn by oxen to the temple as the phallus of 
the Bull v/as lamented by the Babylonian women in the legend 
of Gilgames. 

It was the personification of the new moon ring repre- 
sented as the author of vegetation. 

The number eight was at first the cardinal points, then 
four semi-cardinal points added. The gods of Egypt are four 
gods and their four wives that is four pairs ; with temples 
some had four interior pillars and eight in the outer circle 
of columns, probably the first compass had but four points, 
and the measurements of land first taken from the cosmic 
divisions of the universe and the ground work of the temple 
and the augural delimitation. Among the ancient Chinese 
cultivated land was marked into squares and the central plot 
was "God's acre" and its productions were applied to religious 
purposes — plots had nine squares, eight secular and one in 
the centre sacred so that the one in the middle had two squares 
on each side. 

Everything celestial had an earthly counterpart and vice 
versa. Eig^ht was a complete number ; there were eight grains 
and eight notes in music, eight souls were in the ark. 



98 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

The King of Siam has an octagonal throne, this finally 
was increased to twelve, eight stone columns were placed 
around a temple and stones were cut with eight angles. 

The Captain and crew of the celestial ship had eight souls 
in the ark. Sydik and his seven sons who are the Cabiri 
making eight. 

Krishna, the Hindu redeemer, was the eighth son of Vasu- 
deva. 

The chief gods were four faced and circumcision was per- 
formed on the eighth day and the Brahman was invested with 
the sacred thread at eight years of age. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 99 



NUMBER NINE. 

The number nine originated from the nine months of the 
Embryonic development or the prenatal life of man. 

Consequently nine muses or sea maidens sang in the Norse 
creation of the world. 

So the universe of the Norsemen was made to consist of 
nine regions, and Odin hung nine nights head downward on 
the tree to sweat out the ruins of wisdom. 

There was a cycle of nine gods over Egypt and the 
Egyptians held that this cycle represented the self-develop- 
ment of Ra and reminds one of the nine nights Odin hung 
upon the tree in sacrifice "myself to myself, I offered that 
all wisdom I might know." They represent the nine months 
of the prenatal life of man — they were the nine muses or water 
maidens who sang around the moon cauldron at the Norse 
creation. 

Thoth, the Egyptian moon god, was worshipped with 
eight cosmic forces called Sesennu, making nine. 

They had a nine days fast at the initiation of the mysteries 
for the adoration of the two goddesses of the Eleusinian mys- 
teries. 

The Eleusinian, the great annual feast, lasted nine days, 
celebrated (Sept.-Oct.) 

The Norse Heimdal was called the "pure white god and 
was the son of nine virgins who were sisters. He was the 
heavenly watchman and keeper of the rainbow. 

And there were nine streams of Elivagar, the poison 
stream that flowed out of Niflheim or hell, and in northern 
mythology there were nine worlds and there were nine choirs 



100 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

of cherubim and seraphim of Chaldeans and Jews. — Dupui'S, 
p. 54. 

And we have a chief Judge and eight associate Judges 
making nine. 

Nine was the limit of elementary numbers, there could be 
no elementary number beyond it. It contained all the ele- 
mentary numbers within itself and was called by the Pythago- 
reans the horizon of numbers. 

The number nine was strong among northern European 
nations — at the three times three. In every ninth month they 
renewed the ceremony of sacrifice which should last nine days 
and every day they offered up nine victims whether men or 
animals ; but a still more solemn sacrifice was offered up at 
Upsal, in Sweden, every ninth year when the King and all 
the citizens of distinction were obliged to appear. (Mallett, 
p. 112 North Antiq.) The Scandinavian's numbered to twelve 
without breaking at ten. They reached twelve by units. 
(Mallett, p. 219.) 

The Jews light the wax candles in a nine-branched candle- 
stick. The fortifications of the Acropolis were built with 
nine doors, one within another. 

It was anciently the custom to divide works of literature 
into nine books, as the genius of the writer was supposed to 
be inspired by the nine Muses and Herodotus is divided into 
nme books for the same reason. 

"Hour of prayer being the ninth." Acts 3:1. 

"Saw a vision about the ninth hour." Acts 10:3. 

"Christ went out about the ninth hour." Matt. 20:5. 

Christ cried out about the ninth hour, "Why has thou 
forsaken me." Matt. 27 :47. 

Eighteen and twenty-seven are multiples of nine and 
eighty-one is the square of nine and this eighty-one is the 
favorite number with Chinese. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 101 



NUMBER TEN. 

The number ten was generally considered perfect and 
complete — it was the sum of the fingers on both hands, by 
which men were first taught to count and reckon. The old 
lunar year consisted of ten months, five summer and fiv6 
winter in round numbers, the year of 360 days throwing off 
the five which left thirty-six days to the month, five summer 
and five winter months. 

The Greek year was one of ten months, five were summer 
and five were winter, and the old Roman calendar contained 
but ten months in the time of Romulus. 

The seasons of the year were represented with the Chal- 
deans by a genealogy of gods. 

Most of the ancient political nations have the ten mythical 
heroes at the head of their national history. 

In their traditions before the foundation of Nineveh there 
were ten generations of heroes, Eponyms of ten successive 
cities. 

The Armenian traditions record the ten ancestral heroes 
before Aram (Lenorm "Begin. Hist." p. 29), and the Iranians 
have at their historical beginning ten mythical heroes ending 
with Gayomaretan, and the Hindus have the ten pitris or 
"fathers." 

The Chinese have ten Emperors and so did nations who 
successively inherited and transcribed the beliefs of their 
ancestors. 

Germans and Scandinavians had ten forefathers and 
Arabs have the ten kings at their beginning. 

The Egyptians had the divine reign of ten gods and this 



102 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

division of ten is very ancient and preceded the number of 
tv/elve heroes. 

The ten Patriarchs of Genesis correspond to the ten solar 
mansions or signs of the Zodiac. 

The Hebrews have ten generations from Adam to Noah, 
and also ten commandments, and cause ten plagues in Egypt, 
and have ten lost tribes. 

According to Ewald, Enoch was the Noah who ended the 
old planetary year of seven gods and it may be at the time 
when solar time of 365 days superseded the old lunar year 
of 354 days. 

And he became the solar man of 365. 

That the seven or ten names originally used as solar 
physiognomies have been artificially reduced to a human 
genealogy with the names of men. 

The Hebrews instead of gods turned these solar heroes 
into Patriarchs and concealed their astronomical character. 

There were ten great virtues of Brahma, and Vishnu per- 
formed ten incarnations. 

Babylon was besieged by the Sabaeans for ten years. 

Thebes was besieged ten and Troy for ten years. 

And the war against the Titans by Zeus lasted ten years. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 103 



NUMBER TWELVE. 

In Babylonian mythology according to Diodorus there were 
twelve gods of the heavens and one assigned to each of the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac. 

Twelve signs of the Zodiac. 

Twelve tribes of Israel. 

Twelve tribes of the Nahoreans of the north. 

Twelve Titans who made war against heaven. 

Twelve tribes of the Ishmaelites. 

Twelve districts of the Idumeans. 

Twelve children of Aeolus, the wind god, six sons and 

six daughters. 

As one year has twelve children like Jacob, the twelve 
forms of Jacob the sun or year. 

Twelve altars of Janus, twelve labors of Hercules, twelve 
Asa gods, twelve precious stones of the high priest, twelve 
cities of Ionia. 

It is said that the rock struck by Moses issued in twelve 
brooks, one for each of the twelve tribes. 

Twelve years service of the King of Elam (Gen. 14:4). 

Twelve wells at Elim (Ex. 15:27). 

The number twelve contains the five planetary gods added 
to the seven magnificent gods, making twelve. 

The ten means the same as ten tribes of Israel, and the 
two chosen added make the twelve, and the two were sun and 
moon. 



104 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Five Paters and five Aves the Apostles Creed and the Con- 
fiteor, making twelve, are to be said before leaving bed in the 
morning in Catholic devotions. 

Numbers 24, 36 and 48 seem to be often multiples of 
twelve, as nine is a multiple of three. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 105 



NUMBER THIRTEEN. 

The Norse Loke and the Hebrew Judas are called the 
"Thirteenth," the evil number. In Asgard were erected twelve 
seats for the Aesir and one for Odin, the all father. 

The pyramid of Cheops covers thirteen acres. 

The Aztecs of Mexico had thirteen chief deities. 

A King having thirteen sons gave one to fate and the lot 
fell on the eldest son. 

This moon is a giant with three heads. 

The City of Constantiuople is surrounded by a wall about 
thirteen miles in circumference and has twenty-eight gates 
open upon the city. The thirteen represents the thirteen lunar 
months of the year and the twenty-eight the days of a lunar 
month. 



106 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



NUMBER FOURTEEN. 

Amphion (the sun) who built the walls of Thebes married 
Niobe, the moon, and had seven sons and seven daughters 
who were slain by Apollo and Diana. 

They were vi'sibly the moon rings or months for Apollo 
and Diana became destroying divinities at winter. 

They are the seven young men and seven women sent 
every year to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur or moon 
Bull, and the seven lean and fat of Pharaoh's time. 

They are the fourteen pieces in which Osiris, the Egyptian 
god, is torn every year, and one ring escapes. 

And the fourteen children of Niobe are the fourteen days 
cf her increase, and the death of her children are the four- 
teen days of her decrease — which make the twenty-eight days 
of her life until dead, when a new moon appears. 

The tomb of Osiris as it has been excavated has the shape 
of a dwelling containing fourteen rooms', as he was torn while 
living into fourteen pieces. There are five rooms to the north, 
five to the south and four to the east and the western face is 
open, the place of sunset where he disappears. 

That moon is the box in which Osiris the Egyptian Christ 
was placed by his evil brother and sent to Hades — (Pando- 
ra's box) and drifted away to Byblos, the book or record city 
or wisdom city and lodged in a tree and the limbs of the tree 
were stripped away and left a pillar in which was the soul of 
Osiris, and his wife Isis followed weeping like the mother 
of Christ and begged the pillar, and this story of the god 
Osiris went back almost to the beginning of Egyptian civiliza- 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 107 

tion. The above tree was the moon of fourteen limbs or 
rings. 

The Egyptian Sphinx is hewn out of a living rock, the 
body 150 feet long, the paws 50 feet long, the head 50 feet 
long, the face 14 feet wide and from the top of the head to 
the base of the monument the distance is about 70 feet. All 
these represent sacred and conventional numbers. The Sphinx 
v/as the moon. 



108 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



NUMBER TWENTY-ONE. 

The sun entered Aries, the Ram, on the twenty-first of 
March, the beginning of spring and the renewal. 

Twenty-one was a very sacred number with the ancient 
Persians. Their most sacred prayer the Honovar, contains 
twenty-one words, and the original Avesta contained twenty- 
one books, "Zend Avesta Britannica ;" and in law, a minor is 
one who is under twenty-one years. 

Rig. Veda, vol. 5, p. 125, "When Indra and I ascend to our 
home, the world of the sun, then having drunk the sweet 
soma, let us be united in the 21st sphere of the universal 
friend." 

Ulysses had been absent twenty years when he arrived at 
home, conveyed in a Phaeacian vessel to the shores of Ithaca. 
No man could be kept in outlawry more than twenty years. 

Twenty-one guns are fired for a salute or three times 
seven. 

The City of Rome was marked out by a plow on the 
twenty-first of April. 

Jason, the one sandaled man said, in reply, "I have come 
from the cave of Chiron (the winter moon)." I have accom- 
plished twenty years ; I have come to claim the Kingdom of 
my father. 

The thrice seven on the twenty-first day was the birth 
feast. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 109 



NUMBER FORTY. 

Forty was a gloomy number, one of trial and suffering. 

The Babylonian Gilgames, the sun god, was forty days 
OK his winter journey, being ferried over the waters of death 
to the Isles of the Blest. It was the time of Noah's flood, 
when it rained forty days and forty nights (Gen. 8:12). 

Lent was the period of sorrow when the cluster of the 
seven stars in the constellation of Taurus the Bull disappear 
for about forty days, they were called the ship stars by which 
mariners kept their course before the discovery of the com- 
pass. 

Hesiod says the Pleiades or the ship stars, which are seen 
in the neck of Taurus, were the daughters of Atlas and there 
was a time in the spring when they were absent forty days 
or vv^ere hidden by daylight, but after that time return to 
the night sky, and the Egyptians found their sacred Nile to 
be about forty-two days in rising (six weeks) and the sun 
was forty-tvvo days obscured. The Pleiades, the great ship 
stars of the mariner, were observed for about the same time 
and they divided Egypt into forty-two districts and had forty- 
two commandments. 

The winter moon became the den of thieves who opened 
the moon door by a password — saying, "Open Sesame." 

It was the den of the "Forty Thieves," and the "Robbers 
Roost," and where "Moses and Christ Fasted forty Days," 
and the cave of the "Seven Sleepers," and the winter cave of 
"Hamlin the Piper," and the Nile was forty days in rising, 
v/hich was the great hope of Egypt, and forty days were set 
apart for fasting and prayer to propitiate the Nile god. 



no WHIMS OF THE AGES 

This was the season of the sun's leanness in his dormant 
state of winter or Lent. 

Fasts were prolonged forty days, especially the vernal fast 
ill spring. 

It was the forty days when the ruling star is in evil aspect 
according to the astrolabe, and the Etesian winds prevailed 
for forty days after the setting of the dog star. 

The Druids and Mexicans celebrated the death of the 
year at the midnight culmination of the Pleiades. 

The Aztecs at the termination of the great cycle of fifty- 
two years held a great festival, put out fires and the new 
fire was kindled upon a mountain by friction at midnight as 
the constellation of the Pleiades approached the Zenith. 

Saul, David and Solomon reign 40 years. 

Gideon and Deborah judge Israel 40 years. 

Eli judged Israel 40 years. 

The Philistines reigned over Israel 40 years. (Judges 
13:1). 

After Othniel, the Judge, delivered Israel from Cushan, 
King of Mesopotaniia, the Israelites rested 40 years (Judges) 
— under the reign of Ehud, son of Gera, the land of Israel 
rested 40 years (Judges). 

Again in the time of Deborah there was rest 40 years. 

Israel delivered into the hands of the Moabites 40 
years (Judges 13 :1). 

Goliath defied the armies of Israel 40 days. 

Elijah fasted 40 days. 

Forty days were fulfilled for Jacob, for so are fulfilled the 
diiys of those who are embalmed (Gen. 50:3). 

There fell of the Ephraimites forty-two thousand (Judges 
12:5). 

There were forty-two children Elisha cursed to be de- 
voured by two she bears (11 Kings 2:24). 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 111 

The principal works of the Jews, according to the Talmud, 
were forty less one to escape the evil number forty. 

Thirty-nine is forty, save one, the thirty-nine books of 
the Old Testament are purposely one short of the evil number 
forty. 

Hengist, the Saxon invader of England, reigned 39 years. 

As Jews divided Canaan into twelve parts and their peo- 
ple in twelve tribes to agree with the twelve months of the 
solar year, and regeneration was taught by the renewal of the 
year. 

Forty was a very common number for pillars and walls — 
properly the original number is forty-two or six weeks, but 
the round number of forty is substituted for convenience. 

Forty pillars were used in the construction of temples. 

In Persia with the temple of Chilminar, the same with 
Baalbec which had forty pillars, also in Druidical temples as 
at Stonehenge. In the Hebrew temple the doorway of the 
porch was forty cubits high and twenty broad and over it 
were five beams of carved oak. 

Barclay's Talmud, p. 262. — "And the Israelitish spies were 
sent to spy out the land of Canaan and searched the land forty 
di.ys." 

The outermost wall of Babylon was forty-two miles in 
circumference or 360 stades. 

The golden image of Bel at the temple of Babylon was 
forty feet high and there was a golden table there forty feet 
long and fifteen broad. 

Moses was forty years old when he fled from Egypt, and 
was forty years with Jethro tending his flocks. 

And Moses abode in Mt. Sinai forty days and forty nights, 
waiting for the ten commandments of the law, eating no 
meat and drinking no water. (Exodus 24 :9 — 18.) 



112 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Jonah 3 :4, "yet forty days and Nineveh shall be over- 
thrown, a city of three days' journey." 

It takes the messeng-er of the sun three day always to 
arrive at the moon ; it is on the third day of the moon's 
darkness the angel of light, the solar preacher and priest of 
the altar, arrives at the moon. 

Isaac married Rebekah, daughter of Bethnel, in the fortieth 
year of his age. 

And Esau at forty married Judith, daughter of Beeri the 
Hittite. 

Advent formerly occupied six weeks or forty-tvv^o days in 
honor of the approach of the anniversary of Christ's birth, 
and the festival of the 25th of December. The birthday of 
Mithras was kept for forty days. 

And the Egyptian god Osiris was said to be dead or absent 
forty days in each year, during which he was mourned, cor- 
responding to the exile of Moses and Christ. 

And the Syrians did the same for Adonis and Scandinav- 
ians for Prey. 

And the limbs of Osiris were scattered and sought for 
forty days and so were the bones of Bacchus in Gaul. 

Forty Egyptian judges came and seated themselves in a 
semi-circle (like the half moon altar) above the lake where the 
dead body is to pass over in a boat called Baris in charge of 
a pilot called Charon, and in Egyptian, Kare (Diodorus, 1 :92.) 

The chambers of the Egyptian serapeum containing the 
mummies of the sacred Bulls are forty in number. 

The sacred books of the Egyptians were forty-two in 
number, edited by Thoth, the inventor of writing — he was the 
moon corresponding to the Greek, Hermes. 

These Hermetic books of the Egyptians ascribed to 
Hermes contained the sum of all knowledge both human and 
divine. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 113 

In the Judgment hall of Osiris forty-two judges passed 
sentence on the forty-two sins of the deceased person and 
there were forty-two mortal sins. 

At the end of every twenty-five years whenever a new 
bull, the Apis, was found, the calf was taken to Nilopolis 
and there the Egyptian women stood before the bull for forty 
days (during which women only were allowed), by which 
they secured the blessing of a numerous progeny. 

At the summer solstice the sun appears to rise at the same 
point of the horizon for three days together and at that time 
the greatest amplitude of the sun is forty degrees at rising and 
the same in the west at setting. 

And the greatest ampiltude at rising in winter is 40 degrees 
south of east and the same amplitude at setting south of west. 

The Serapion or temple of Osiris which contains the 
mummies of the sacred bulls each of which is placed in a 
chamber, and the chambers are forty in number and excavated 
on each side of galleries about twelve feet wide, and on one 
side of the labyrinth close to Lake Moeris stood a pyramid 
forty feet high. 

The Egyptians observed forty days for those who were 
embalmed. 

Abury works are constructed upon a huge serpent whose 
bow is curved to the north, extending for miles. The head of 
the serpent is composed of forty stones enclosing a temple 
of nineteen stones referring to the moon cycle. 

On the summit of Babel was the shrine in which stood the 
golden image of Baal, 40 feet high, and a golden table forty 
feet long and fifteen broad. This Babel was a pyramid of 
eight square stages. — Babylon "Britannica." 

It rained forty days in the time of the flood and so the 
great reservoir was constructed forty miles square on the 
west of Borsippa which receive the waters of the Euphrates. 



114 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

The temple of Heliopolis was surrounded by forty pillars 
and these magical astronomical numbers were common to all 
the principal religions. 

Forty conspirators landed to slay Paul. Acts 23 :13. 

Christ fasted forty days. 

Forty stripes given in chastisement. Deuteron., 25 :3. 

The beast to which was given to utter blasphemies for 
forty-two months. Rev. 13 : 5. 

And in the religious festival of the Persians the salutation 
of Mithras continued forty days. 

In the twelfth century a church penance was given for 
forty days on bread and water. 

In the graveyard of the Swiss Lake dwellers along with 
each skeleton were found forty flakes of the tusks of the 
wild boar pierced at each extremity, which shows they had the 
same Adonis worship of Babylonia and Phoenicia. 

As a burial custom in ancient Scythia the dead Scythian 
was carried about among all the neighbors for forty days 
and a funeral feast was given by every friend so visited. 

Maidens and many horses were sacrificed to the departed 
spirit of Jenghix Kahn by his successor to the throne in the 
13th century and again at the election of Kuluk Kahn. Dur- 
ing the feast, which lasted a week, forty oxen were consumed 
each day. ("Mongols" Ency. Brit., p. 742). 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 115 



NUMBER FIFTY. 

Fifty-two seems to be the cycle of thirteen lunar months 
of the year multiplied by the sacred four equals fifty-two, the 
lunar weeks of the year. 

Chaldeans had seven supreme gods in the seven planets 
and fifty great gods in the fifty-two weeks of the year in 
round numbers. 

Giants were fifty headed and one hundred handed. 

The Hydra had by some one hundred heads, by others 
fifty. 

Cerberus, according to Hesiod, had fifty heads and the 
sea god Nereus had fifty daughters. 

The Nereids or nymphs of the sea were said to be fifty in 
number. 

Endymion Danaus and Priam Aegyptus and Lycaon all 
had fifty sons or daughters. 



116 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



NUMBER SEVENTY. 

The number 70 was established by the precession of the 
equinoxes. The sun advances about one degree in seventy- 
two years causing the spring equinox to occur one degree 
earlier every seventy-tvvo years or advancing about one sign 
in 2160 years and completing the entire circle of the ecliptic 
in about 26,000 years which was called the great year; hence 
the sacred seventy in round numbers. 

The precession of the equinoxes is caused by the reeling 
motion of the earth which is caused by disturbing attractions, 
hence the seventy elders of the Sanhedrim and the Yacna of 
the Persian Avesta contained seventy-two chapters and the 
girdle of the Parsee contained seventy-two threads. 

Typhon was in league with 72 comrades to slay Osiris, his 
Egyptian brother, and the Egyptians mourned for Jacob 
seventy days. Gen. 50:3. 

At the funeral of an Egyptian King, according to Diodorus, 
the temples were closed and the people held no sacrifice or 
festival for 72 days. 

Sargon, the King of Babylonia, caused the great work on 
astrology to be compiled in seventy-two books which were 
translated in Greek by Berosus. 

Ex. 1 :15 — "And all the souls that came out of the loins of 
Jncob were seventy." 

Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. — II Kings 10:1. 

Jeremiah (25:11) served Babylon seventy years. 

Luke 10:1 — The Lord appointed seventy. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 117 



NUMBER 100. 

The Zodiacal signs were the arbitrary divisions of time for 
convenience and the 12 signs each had a spirit which pre- 
sided over every month, and the human body was divided into 
twelve parts, each part of which was under the influence of 
that spirit when passing through that sign. Circles had 12 
pillars as 12 stones set up in the Jordan. 

In ancient times of the formation of the Zodiac, some had 
twelve signs and others but ten. 

The great hundred was ten twelves, 120, called "the long 
hundred," and was a duodecimal computation formerly com- 
mon in Britain and Scandinavia. 

A staff of reeds was the omen stick of the British Druids, 
and we still retain the word Hand-reed contracted as heard 
in our numeral, one hundred, a contraction of Hand reed. 

Babylon and Thebes had each 100 gates. 
The Sleeping Beauty and Barbarossa were condemned to 
sleep 100 years duration or the one hundred days of winter. 

Hercules delivered his country from the annual tribute of 
100 oxen which it paid to Erginus. 

Gen. 33:19 — And Jacob bought of the children of Hamor 
a parcel of a field for an hundred pieces of money and erected 
there an altar and called it "El-Elohe — Israel God" — ^the God 
of Israel. 

The Nacissus had 100 roots. 

The winter dragon that guarded the apples in the Hesperian 
Garden had 100 heads and never slept. All these are the 
hundred days of winter. 



118 WHIMS OF THE AGES 

Argos was hundred-eyed, Hydra one hundred headed and 
Briareus had one hundred hands. 

And there were a hundred men concealed in the wooden 
horse presented to Troy and the horse was dedicated to Athene 
by the departing Greeks. 

All the above represent the period of winter. 

Then the solar hero of ancient Britain says of himself, 
''Have I not destroyed a hundred forts, have I not slain a 
hundred governors, have I not given a hundred veils and 
slaughtered a hundred chieftains?" — Davies' Mythology of 
British Druids, p. 560. 

The narcissus plucked by Prosperine had 100 flowers which 
grew from one root. 

The Hecatomboia or one hundred oxen sacrificed to Juno 
and the flesh distributed among the poor. Again the 
Hecatomphonia, a sacrifice to Jupiter when a hundred ene- 
mies had been slain. 

Hecatompolis was named for its hundred cities. 

Hecatompylos Thebes for its 100 gates. 

The children of Israel offered a hundred bullocks at the 
dedication of the House of God. Ezra, chap. 6, verse 17. 

Minos paid a vow to Jupiter, the bodies of a hundred bulls, 
after overcoming the Athenians, when he reached the land of 
the Curetes (Metamorphoses p. 269). The eyes of Argus were 
100, the same as the heads of Hydra which reach a hundred 
(Ovid, Metamar. p. 303). They are not stars nor those of 
Briareus or Cacus, they are definite cycle numbers which refer 
to the period of winter generally called the one hundred days. 

Again the maid stung by a spindle who fell in a sleep of 
100 years duration, and at the end of that time awoke from 
her sleep by the kiss of her hero lover, the kiss of the spring 
sun. 



WHIMS OF THE AGES 119 

Barbarossa has to sleep 100 years, when the winter ravens 
will cease flying, then he will break his chains, conquer his 
enemies and hang his shield on a withered pear tree which will 
again blossom. — (Asgard and the Gods, p. 80). 

In large numbers the 100 is most common and the thousand 
and one and the year and a day. 

Kalevala, Vol. I, p. 19 — Wainamoinen planted the first 
oak and it grew evil and with its branches hid the sun, and 
he employed a pigmy from the copper kingdom to cut it down, 
an oak of a hundred branches, and in its fall it was shivered in 
pieces and whoever obtained a piece became master of magic 
and eternal welfare. The oak is the winter moon which is 
cut in pieces by the young stripling, the new moon ring, all 
its branches and twigs are healing in spring — the pigmy who 
cut it down is the first rod or ring of the spring moon which 
is the axe that hews down the black winter moon, a limb every 
night. 

Iphidimas gave 100 oxen as a wedding present to his 
father-in-law. (Iliad XI, 244.) 

There are 100 bright moon rings or three months of 
winter. 

Ptah-Nefer-ka, the Egyptian god, gave one hundred pieces 
of silver for the hidden book of wisdom which was the moon, 
the 100 oxen the father of Odyssus gave for the old nurse, the 
servitude of the 100 days of winter exile. 

The Hydra is the serpent of a hundred heads. Like Argus, 
he is the winter moon, 100 days of winter in round numbers. 

Hercules defeated and killed Erginus, the King of 
Orchomenos, and delivered the Thebans from the annual 
tribute of one hundred oxen. The above story is transparent — 
Hercules, the sun, killed Orchomenos, the winter king of 
Orcus or Hades, the moon king, and delivered the summer 
race from the annual winter captivity. 



120 WHIMS OF THE AGES 



MISCELLANEOUS NUMBERS. 

There were 360 degrees of a circle and there were 360 
eons or Genii and there were 360 days of the year in round 
numbers and 360 idols of Japan in the palace of Dairi. 

360 statues surrounded Hobal, the sun god Bel of the 
y-Vrabs, and 360 chapels built round the mosque of Balk. 

And the Orphic theology recognized 360 gods. 

This solar wheel sometimes said to have 360 spokes in the 
Rig. Veda, and in the three axles of the wheel, three seasons. 

The Egyptian priests daily poured 360 cups of water to 
the Nile, the number of days in the year. 

We are told of the three hundred warriors of Thermopylae 
and the three hundred warriors who lapped water as a dog 
under Gideon's command (Judges 7:5), and the three hun- 
dred of xA^braham's household. 

300, 600 and 6,000 might be multiples of 60. 

300 is the number of days in the Roman year of ten 
months. 

30 is the number of days in a month. 

1000 or ten thousand are indefinite numbers — that is a 
number of a great multitude, as in the Hindu Puravas the 
solar orb is called the thousand rayed. 

Indra, the god of the firmament, called thousand eyed. 

Krishna has ten thousand wives. 

The Phoenix ro'se from its ashes once in five hundred 
years. 



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